


Compass Points

by brian_randall_memorial



Category: Ranma 1/2
Genre: Dark, Future Fic, Love Hina cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-10-01
Updated: 2002-10-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 21:40:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11975586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brian_randall_memorial/pseuds/brian_randall_memorial
Summary: Rescuing Akane sometimes seems like a full-time job, but this time it's a little different.  Now, Ranma is the only one who can stop her.  A multi-generation story.





	1. Act I: Heart and Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Brian Randall, often known as durandall, wrote a variety of fanfiction up until his death on January 17, 2014.
> 
> This account serves as a memorial to his work and will ensure it's not lost.

Nabiki shuddered against the cold, pulling her coat about her tighter. The chill wind whipped about, sending the trailing straps from her climbing gear flapping wildly. She stumbled for a moment, as one half-numbed hand slipped and she dropped her mattock.

Shivering, she slid her mitten back on, turning to look down the slope behind her. The hood of her parka obscured her field of vision as the thick brown strands of the lining fluttered in the wind.

All around was an expanse of featureless white, broken only in the distance by occasional rocks, and further away, distant brown smudges. Only last week those smudges had been where she had griped to Ranma and Tofu about the heat. Ranma had simply stared into her eyes impassively, not showing any reaction, while Tofu shrugged and bore it.

Once her mitten was back on and warmth began to seep back into her hand, she glanced back up the slope they were traversing. A giant slab of white snow on the side of the mountain. It wasn’t much of a mountain, really. More like a big hill.

The slope wasn’t steep, but it was a good distance to the point Ranma had declared that he was going to, and the Tendo girl found herself wishing she had studied the martial arts more closely. Or at least practiced more than just flexibility.

She paused for a moment, waiting for Tofu to notice her. After a moment he did, and turned around slowly. His own form was wrapped in dark, thick woolens, making him look like a native guide. Nabiki almost laughed at the image of Tofu as a sherpa, herself the explorer… but the humor of the situation drained quickly when Ranma stepped out from behind Tofu, his face calm and composed.

Nabiki shivered again, partially from the air, but mostly because of Ranma. He wore nothing more than his standard Chinese clothing, while a subtle lambent aura seeped from beneath the faded silk. His blue eyes were hardened, cerulean spheres of ice that lit upon Nabiki briefly, turned to Tofu, then looked away again. He gazed up towards the peak of the mountain, then shook his head.

Tofu turned to look at Ranma, warily stepping back. The pigtailed boy sighed, seemingly untouched by the frigid surroundings. “She’s near. We’ll rest here. Tomorrow, then.” He nodded decisively, then sank to the lotus position. “You two require sleep.”

Nabiki shuddered, then shrugged off her pack, eager to have the tent set up and the chance to huddle for warmth. “Thank the kami…” For heat, she would have been willing to curl up with Kuno by then.

Tofu removed his own pack, rummaged around for a bit, then removed his mittens, revealing thin gloves beneath. His eyes met Nabiki’s for a moment, and she saw a hint of sadness and loss in them before he turned back to the task of setting up the tent. His voice carried through the wind that picked up and began to howl at them, trying to tear the words away. “Let’s just hurry. I know I can hardly wait to get warm again.”

Chastising herself for her lapse in attention, Nabiki approached and held down the tent while Tofu staked it in place. “Right. Sorry.” The wind had stilled suddenly and she opened her mouth to ask about it, but Tofu interrupted her with a shake of his head. She paled and nodded, shooting a glance towards where Ranma meditated in the snow.

Loose flakes swirled about in the wind that seemed not to touch the pair of climbers, gradually spiraling towards Ranma, then flitting away. Tofu studiously avoided looking at him, though Nabiki shot the occasional peek in the boy’s direction nervously, noting that outside of a wide circle surrounding Ranma, crystals of ice still whipped about in frenzied gusts.

Once the tent was erected, Tofu held it open while Nabiki scrambled in, joining her after only a moment of hesitation. Nabiki sealed the tent after Tofu, then shrugged out of her outer clothing and squirmed her way into her sleeping bag. Tofu smiled faintly, then encased himself in his own protective layer of insulation. “Better, Nabiki?”

Nabiki shivered again at her memory memories. After a moment, she opened her eyes, and turned towards Tofu. “Is… What’s going to happen?”

Tofu frowned, his face betraying none of the emotion it had in Ranma’s presence. “I don’t know, Nabiki. I’m worried, and… I’m afraid. I’ll tell you that much. Tomorrow, we’ll see if he can…” He trailed off, turning to face the roof of the tent moodily.

Nabiki winced, then muffled a whimper. “He… he’s going to save her, right?” There was no reason to name him. “He’s always saved her before, right?” There was no reason to name her, either.

Tofu sighed, closing his eyes. “I hope so, Nabiki.” But they were words Nabiki didn’t want to hear, then. The thought of losing her sister sent a hot pain shooting through her gut. “I hope so.”

* * *

Ranma had become detached, seeming indifferent once the entire ordeal had begun. He spent more and more time in the soul of ice, and less time being himself. He explained, in his cold, dispassionate way, that he had to do it. He needed to be ready.

The others had finally come to accept it, knowing they couldn’t quite understand what drove him… or _her_ for that matter.

* * *

Nabiki sighed against the light that woke her, illuminating one wall of the tent and alerting her that the time of warmth and comfort was at an end for the moment. Tofu was lying near her, staring at the ceiling silently.

She licked her lips nervously, then sighed. “Morning, Tofu.”

He shot a glance towards her, expression grave, then sat up. “Morning indeed… today…” He frowned, trailing off, then shook his head. “We’d better eat, and hurry on our way.”

Nabiki nodded. “Ranma might get impatient.”

Tofu shook his head, rummaging though a bag. “I doubt he’s got the capacity at this point.”

Nabiki lowered her head and sighed. “Right. Do you think he’s hungry?”

The older man looked up and stared at her for a moment, seeming surprised, then shrugged, turning back to the bag he was rifling through. “I doubt it.”

The middle Tendo sister frowned. “Isn’t it traditional to leave them offerings?”

“Ranma’s neither dead, nor a kami.” Tofu’s tone seemed terse, and Nabiki wisely kept her tongue in check until their trail rations were finished.

Once they were done, she took a last piece of hard biscuit out, dressed, and waited for Tofu.

The man re-packed everything with expertise, and in short order, re-dressed. The two took a few quick, shallow breaths, bracing themselves for the biting cold that would be waiting them outside.

It wasn’t enough.

The chill of the afternoon before was nothing compared to the blinding, near-arctic air that assaulted them when they exited the tent. A thin layer of ice crusted the exterior of the shelter, despite the warmth it had held inside.

Tofu eyed it for a moment, then shook his head and decided to leave it. One way or another, they wouldn’t need to take it with them.

Nabiki drew in a sharp breath, coughing as the freezing air invaded her lungs, then gasped, provoking another coughing fit.

Tofu raised his mattock defensively and spun, then relaxed. “Calm down, Nabiki. It’s just Ranma.”

Nabiki shivered, then nodded decisively. Slipping off her mitten, she pulled the biscuit out of a pocket and approached Ranma.

The pigtailed martial artist was sitting on a low pedestal carved out of compressed snow. Ice had formed near him, thin, serpent-like strands writhing in a ring, then ascending in a spiral.

He stared at a blue column of ice that jutted through the frozen strands around him contemplatively. Nabiki swallowed, and as Ranma shot a glance towards her, the formations around Ranma shivered once, then collapsed into a circle of shards. Nabiki’s hand trembled as she held out the biscuit. “You should eat something, Ranma. She wouldn’t want…” She trailed off, as Ranma’s features became pained, and a wave of fatigue washed across his face.

The pigtailed boy shivered, then smiled faintly. “I’m not hungry now, Nabiki. But thank you.” He shuddered again in the frigid climate, then relaxed, the emotion draining from him again, and with it, the touch of the environment faded.

Tofu shouldered his pack, motioning Nabiki to do the same. She did so silently, resisting the urge to shed tears. They were both alive, still. There was a chance Ranma could save her… and himself…

* * *

The devastation around Phoenix Mountain was frightening, when Kiima relayed the words to Nabiki. The Gekkaja had been taken as a symbol of power, and only would be returned if someone brought the Kinjakan to a place that… ‘Ranma would know.’

And he had, though Nabiki couldn’t understand how. She took a moment to study the boy. He hadn’t cried in weeks, seeming more removed and detached from the outside world than ever.

Kiima’s eyes had a hard edge, capturing Nabiki’s as she surveyed the shattered and crumbling stone parapets that made up their home. The fact that no lives were lost was little consolation to the guards who had lost their wings to frostbite.

* * *

The trio marched towards a point below the summit, Nabiki and Tofu trudging across the hard-packed snow, and Ranma seeming to drift more than walk. His feet left no marks, though the snow where he passed hardened enough to support both Nabiki and Tofu. They made no attempt to speak to each other until they reached a shallow, bowl-shaped depression that appeared to be blasted into the side of the slope.

Ranma nodded once to himself, then turned towards Tofu and Nabiki. “It’s time. You two will be in danger. Give me the tool, and observe from a safe distance.” He pointed towards a nearby outcropping of stone.

Tofu twitched slightly, then removed a short staff-like object from his pack. After a moment of hesitation, Nabiki removed a heavy iron ring with odd decorative flanges from her own pack. The pair eyed Ranma uneasily, then set the pieces on the snow and backed away.

The older man cocked his head to one side. “You want us to watch?”

Ranma’s face remained indifferent as he gathered up the ring and the staff. “No. But you wish to do so anyway.”

Nabiki shivered, wiping at her eyes with her mittens. “Ranma… take care of yourself. We… I want you to come back.”

His face remained unchanging as he tossed the ring into the air then caught it on the end of the staff. “The tool will need to be returned…” He leveled the ring-capped staff at Tofu. “You must retrieve this. Otherwise, all is for nothing. I am going now. Take cover. Do not forget, Tofu. The tool must be retrieved.” Ranma’s ice-hard eyes bored into the doctor’s as Tofu nodded nervously.

The man licked his lips. “The… Saffron would never forgive us if we lost the Kinjakan. I’ll be certain to take it back. What about…”

Ranma shook his head, turning away. “The Gekkaja is in her hands. If it can be retrieved… Simply remember, this tool _must_ be retrieved at all costs.”

Tofu nodded again, then scurried to the rock that Ranma had indicated they should hide behind. If Ranma was stressing something when he was that deep in the soul of ice, then Tofu knew it was damnably important.

Nabiki knew by other signs. Ranma never spoke that formally. That he was now meant…

* * *

She vanished, leaving nothing behind but a patch of ice and a room so frozen that the walls had cracked when touched, and caused Soun’s fingers to become frostbitten.

Ranma had been broken, blaming himself endlessly, and seemed to be able to do little more than curse his foolishness. Nabiki had tracked her, then met up with Tofu after discovering just what had happened.

A search for power, for strength… an equality that a young man had denied her, despite his well-meaning. Two people agreed to help her in her search for discipline and strength, each unaware of the other’s presence.

Originally a quest for self-discipline… one that had failed after being given too much power to resist so soon.

And the heart of ice was too dangerous to be learned so quickly, without the proper self-control. She never would have learned it had Tofu or Cologne been aware of the other’s teachings, but as things went…

That was the beginning of Ranma’s change, too, since he knew there was only one way to bring Akane out of it.

He had to go in after her.

* * *

Ranma strode purposefully into the center of the depression, feeling more than seeing the force at its center.

Easily four hundred feet across, the bowl sloped against the curvature of the hillside, interrupted only by a presence at the center. Ranma tightened his grip on the tool he held, then froze. After a moment, responding to some unknowable sense, he resumed his walk towards a swirling white cloud in the center of the depression.

The chill mists parted around him, sending writhing tendrils of sub-zero air near him, which shied away from the Kinjakan. He frowned, seeing the form revealed at the storm’s center.

He nodded to her once, respectfully. “Akane.”

* * *

The change in her was surprisingly subtle, and for a moment, she seemed to be gaining the control that she sought… But it wasn’t to be.

There was simply too much power to resist the temptation.

One night, it overcame her, and her means became her method. She didn’t know _why_ she had to do what she did… only that she had to do it.

Because the heart of ice was controlling her, at that point.

* * *

The passage of time had changed Akane. It was only a short time, but the changes were severe. Frost glittered in her hair, giving her a mystical, gleaming quality. Her dark eyes shone with a luminous, icy power, while her clothing was nothing more than tattered remnants.

But most dramatic was the aura of intense cold that radiated from her, faintly thrumming just beyond the edge of the senses.

She stared at Ranma disinterestedly, the Gekkaja held loosely in one hand. “You came.” There was no emotion in her voice.

The pigtailed boy nodded curtly, then showed the Kinjakan to her. “We will do battle now.”

Akane cocked her head to one side, then returned the nod. “It will be. The victor will claim both keys. What then?”

Ranma inclined his head faintly. “I do not care, past our battle.”

Akane frowned. “You will have power if you win. What else do you desire?”

“We are beyond such simple things as desire, aren’t we?”

“I believe so. But we must fight. My cause is not complete until we do so.”

Ranma tightened his grip on the Kinjakan, keeping it steady at his side. “Understood.”

As one, they raised their weapons, Akane’s staff bearing a wickedly curved scythe-like blade on the end. In one voice, they announced, “Kumite.”

And the battle was joined.

* * *

When Cologne had seen Ranma and Akane growing close, she knew that her chances of getting Ranma were slim, and the chances of getting his cooperation were even less. She had pursued a different method instead… Akane hadn’t taken much convincing to be adopted into the tribe at that point.

If it hadn’t been in the wake of Ranma protecting Akane from another fiancee’s attack… But Ranma saved her. Had to, really. And Kodachi had time to drop the one poisoned bouquet that a bystander had caught.

If it were a martial artist, they might have been able to shrug off the effects. But Sayuri was not a martial artist. If Akane had been better, she could have stopped Kodachi on her own. If Akane had been able to avoid Kodachi. If she had been able to take the bouquet herself. If.

* * *

It was brief, and it was brutal.

Ranma met Akane’s charge, flinging his weapon away, and leaving himself open for her attack.

The Gekkaja hissed, slashing through the air with a faint, keening wail, seemingly ready to rend the very sky.

The cruelly sharp edge bit into Ranma’s chest, goring him and spraying blood across the slender girl wielding the weapon. He smiled sadly, then shuddered from the exposure. The pain of the steel that punctured him dimmed, as it quickly numbed. “Akane… Maybe… simple things like desires are better left intact. Without you, I have no desire to live. No meaning…” He closed his eyes and slumped forward, shivering.

Inside Akane, something frozen… snapped, and the impassive mask on her face slipped, revealing a frightened young girl. “R… Ranma? What’s going on here?”

Her eyes widened, and she grabbed onto him, pulling the Gekkaja free and tossing it away. “Ranma! Are you okay?”

He raised his head, hard ice in his eyes. “Such is the way of folly.” Akane recoiled instinctively, but not quickly enough.

With that, coldness enveloped the pair, freezing them in a near embrace. Before Akane succumbed to the freezing grip completely, she saw the light of warmth in Ranma’s eyes. Ice began to form around them, giant crystals stabbing into the air about them, pushing snow away and draining what little moisture that wasn’t already frozen. Mere centimeters separated the pair, encased as they were.

Tofu charged towards the slowly enlarging block of ice, gathering the Kinjakan before the structure claimed it, then running away as the heat from the staff began to melt the snow near him.

In defiance of nature, the thawing sludge drifted upwards, then froze once more as part of the crystal that enveloped the young lovers.

Tofu ran, and Nabiki joined him shortly. After the ache in her legs became too much, she slipped and fell down. The slick ice that Ranma had traversed gave her no purchase, and she flailed about with her mattock for a moment before simply letting the slide take her. Tofu saw Nabiki pass him, then flopped onto his chest, and slid next to her, quickly dropping the distance that they had struggled to ascend in the past days.

On the hillside above them, a faint white cloud formed, even as a deep rumbling noise was heard.

* * *

To be frozen instantly… she had lost contact with her body, but could still see out of her eyes… and Ranma’s met hers. Despite his betrayal, she felt the love in his gaze, and knew that what he had done… had to be done. Dead in body, but together in spirit.

She knew that she would be able to find her center, her peace… and control here. If only the price hadn’t been so great…


	2. Now Only Right Thine Heart

* * *

#### [Walkabout]

* * *

He stared at his hands in a sort of fascinated shock. Probably unable to believe what he had done.

“What happens next?”

She looked much the same as he felt, seeming completely at a loss, for a change.

“I’m not sure. Maybe we should take back the Kinjakan?”

Both sets of eyes turned to the pieces of the staff, the iron ring and rod resting against the wall beneath a small window.

“Yeah… we can do that. That would work.”

The window, which was half-white with the rise of snow pressed against the glass, and half-white with the steam of their breath.

“We have to send a letter to tell them what happened.”

There was a moment of silence, allowing the whispering winds outside to rise in volume to a shrieking howl, as they flung more snow against the side of the building.

“Yes. You’re right.”

Neither needed to say that they weren’t going back immediately.

* * *

#### [Discovery]

* * *

“You know, this journey has been pleasant.”

He glanced at her, nodding. “Yes,” he said at length, surveying the warmer desert below them. “We should probably get out of China, though. We can head back east, or south.”

“Mmm,” she mused, frowning. “You know, the most irritating thing about traveling is dealing with ‘that’ time of the month.”

He fell silent, not really wanting to think about it.

“Which, fortunately, hasn’t happened this month. I wonder why.”

A shudder swept through him, and he turned to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I…” Words failed him, and he spread his hands helplessly, looking up at her, where she sat perched on a boulder above his path.

She didn’t look as angry as bemused. “Nothing to forgive. Normally, I’d be much more upset, but after seeing… that…” she trailed off, considering.

He nodded, the nightmare of ice and snow still playing in his own memory. “Yes,” he said slowly. “But I still feel that I should have been more responsible.”

“Yeah? Tell you what you can do to make it up to me, then.”

“What’s that?” he asked cautiously.

“Do it again, the next time we find a place to stay.”

* * *

#### [End of the Road]

* * *

He surveyed the quay, frowning. “I have a feeling… I don’t want to sound too silly about the entire thing, dear, but I have a feeling that we should really be heading back, soon.”

She nodded, one hand resting on her swollen belly. “Yes,” she said. “I want our child to be born in our own land.”

A smile came to his lips at that thought. “I never would have expected this,” he mused. “But I can’t really complain.”

An eyebrow arched upwards at that. “You’d better not,” she warned.

Snorting, he began walking towards the ship. “I’d rather not swim back home. Let’s get going.”

* * *

#### [Home at Last]

* * *

“And, um, so, Tendo-san, I’d like to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

Soun had not been himself since hearing of Ranma and Akane’s demise. Nabiki knew better than to share the possibility of their revival with him, for fear of his overreaction. “Oh?” he said, pulling himself forcibly back from the brink of his despair.

The older man’s eyes took in the doctor, his clothing travel-worn and threadbare, and his daughter. Her own clothing was little better, and she carried a child already. Asking him for permission was somewhat moot, at that point.

“Fine,” he said in a clipped tone. “I grant permission.”

His daughter winced suddenly, one hand dropping to her abdomen, as she swallowed. “Your timing is priceless,” she said, leaning heavily against the doctor. “Call an ambulance?”

* * *

#### [Pride and Joy]

* * *

She was exhausted, though the pain was fading, slowly lessening. “You know,” she remarked drowsily, “I really _don’t_ plan on going through that again.”

He laughed softly, cradling their child nearby. “I won’t complain. That didn’t look very comfortable to you.”

“Good. Now, before I fall asleep… let me see her again.”

“Of course.”

She reached out her arms, taking the child from Tofu and hugging it gently to herself. “Her name… she… she should be named Ranko,” she stated firmly before exhaustion finally overcame her.

* * *

#### [Visitation]

* * *

She stepped into the house warily. Her sister had said nothing more than, ‘there are visitors from China here to see you,’ but there could be any number of meanings to that.

She quashed down the small bubble of hope that rose within her chest as she considered the possibility that it was Ranma and Akane. That couldn’t happen.

Her footsteps came to a sudden halt as she beheld who the guests were, kneeling calmly before the opened shoji panels facing the koi pond and garden. Three of them, Kiima and her two attendants.

The three turned to look at her as she entered, while her sister continued with simple pleasantries and poured tea.

“What brings you here?” she asked guardedly.

The winged woman set her teacup down carefully, nodding politely to Kasumi before turning to address the elder sister. “We seek information about what has been going on in the world,” she stated simply. “It impinges on us, and we must be prepared to make our move. We have no great desire to be crushed by things we never see coming.”

Anger and worry mingled, both finally giving way to sense. “Maybe I can help you,” she said slowly. “We don’t have a lot of time, though. Kasumi? Can you fetch me a red pen, and the atlas of the world?”

While her sister scurried off to her bidding, Nabiki sat thoughtfully at the table. Kiima raised an eyebrow, her attendants remaining silent behind her, wings ruffling nervously in agitation. “You will tell us, then?”

“I might be able to do more than just that,” Nabiki muttered. “Tell Shampoo and Herb that this is a late wedding present. Now, this all began, I think, even though it’s not terribly clear…”

* * *

#### [Exchange]

* * *

“Dear, it’s not that I think what you’re doing is wrong… it’s that money is tight enough as it is. We can’t really afford to keep on doing this.”

She hesitated, eyeing the scattered paperwork on the table before her. “I… I can’t just stop,” she said. “But what else can we do?”

He considered for a long moment, then rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Unless you can find a way to make money off of this, I’m afraid not.”

Her face fell, and she sighed. “I don’t know… I want to help… but… maybe…”

His eyebrows rose in a silent question, as a smile bloomed on her face. “I may just have a plan,” she remarked thoughtfully.

* * *

#### [Hello Again]

* * *

“Shan Pu! Herb! It’s been so long — how have you been?”

The one smiled cheerily, and embraced the woman before her in a sisterly hug. “Good, Nabiki, good! You are very helpful to us.”

The other moodily said, “We are… better… for your intercession, Tendo-sama.”

“That’s not needed, thank you.”

A small voice asked, “Who are you?”

Gathering up her daughter, Nabiki explained, “This is my daughter, Ranko.”

The Joketsuzoku woman smiled broadly, teeth showing in a fierce grin. “He would have been proud.”

“I… I hope so.”

* * *

#### [Trade]

* * *

“So what did they give you?”

“A few thousand tons of steel, mined and refined by the Musk.”

“And?”

“It’s more durable than it really should be, and combines with other metals for immensely powerful and durable alloys.”

“I see.”

“And, uh… it’s fey. But people don’t need to know that, because there’s a scientific reason backing the mythical one.”

“Hmm. You could make an awful lot of money with this.”

“I know.”

* * *

#### [Growth]

* * *

“Dear…” Worry.

“What now?” Irritation.

“It’s time that we told Ranko the truth about Ranma and Akane.” Conviction.

“Why? What good would that do?” Confusion.

“If anyone can bring them back, it’s not going to be me. I… have a feeling that she’s the key, if there is one.” Pride.

“I’m very busy. Just… do what you think is necessary.” Approval.

* * *

#### [Education]

* * *

“Now, Ranko, you’re getting older, and, well, there are some thing you probably should know…”

Bright eyes blinked in confusion. “Daddy? I already know — we had sex education like, over a year ago.”

There was a long moment of silence, interrupted by a man’s coughing. “Um. Yes, but that’s not what this is about. This is about your uncle.”

“Huh?”

“Your uncle, Ranma.”

Confusion melted into joy. “You’re finally going to tell me? This is _awesome_!”

“Now… we haven’t been _that_ uptight about information from you… have we?”

“Yeah, whatever. Tell me about my uncle Ranma! And, like, when did he and Shampoo break up?”

Another long moment of silence. “What?”

“He was dating Shampoo, right?”

“Um… I guess, once in a while, but… no. They weren’t dating like you’re probably thinking.”

“Well then, did he piss her off so much that she became a lesbian? Is that why she married a woman?”

“Well, you see… actually, I’ll explain that some other time. It’s really complicated. What I want to talk to you about, is Ranma. You see, Ranma was a martial artist…”

* * *

#### [Farewell]

* * *

“Okay, I might not see you guys for a while, I need to go down and put together some equipment and make arrangements.”

Her father nodded stoically, a hint of a smile betraying his approval. Her mother simply nodded doubtfully.

“Ranko, dear… be VERY careful.”

“Yes, we wouldn’t want you to put yourself in any more risk than you need to.”

She offered her parents a knowing grin. “I can manage this. All I need is some of what you’ve told me about Uncle’s luck.”


	3. Act II: Progeny and Spirit

* * *

#### [Progeny: Yang]

* * *

Mommy showed me a photo of Uncle Ranma. She has a big book of pictures of Uncle and Auntie, actually. But I mostly noticed that there was a picture of him, sitting on the snow.

The picture looked like he wasn’t on a bank of snow at all, though. It was like he was floating in a field of white, and couldn’t see the world around him. Mom seemed to get sad just looking at it. I didn’t know what it was. I asked Mom who the boy in the picture was, wearing the funny old-fashioned Chinese clothing.

She made a few faces at that, then said, “That’s your Uncle, Saotome Ranma. You were named after him, you know.”

Which is silly. My name isn’t Ranma.

* * *

I managed to sneak into Mommy’s room while she was away, and grabbed the scrapbook to peek into it. She didn’t seem to like me looking at it much as I got older.

I noticed that a lot of people that Mommy and Daddy hung out with also knew Uncle Ranma. There was a picture of Ranma standing next to some boy carrying a wooden sword, and both of them were looking at the camera, though they looked mad. Uncle Ranma was in a picture next to Auntie Ukyou, too.

That was funny, but I’d never seen Auntie Ukyou carry that big metal spatula around, she normally just used smaller ones. There weren’t any pictures of Daddy until the very end, though, which I thought was kind of weird. Then there was a single picture of Daddy walking next to Uncle Ranma in the snow somewhere, but Daddy was all bundled up against the cold, and I could just barely see his face behind his glasses. Uncle Ranma just walked forward, like he wasn’t even worried about the cold. Maybe it wasn’t really that cold?

There were a few people in the pictures that I had never seen before, too. There was a pretty lady with purple hair, hugging Uncle Ranma at some point, though he looked confused… There was the boy with the wooden sword, and then there was another boy who I didn’t recognize, holding an umbrella. It looked like he was fighting with Uncle, too.

A lot of the pictures were of my other Auntie — the one Auntie Kasumi told me it was better not to talk about. Mommy and Daddy just get all quiet when I ask them. I think Grandpa mentioned her once or twice. Her name is Akane. There’s more pictures, too… there’s a girl who looks kind of like Uncle Ranma only with red hair… I think she’s shorter, but there aren’t any pictures of her and Uncle Ranma together.

I heard Mommy coming home, so I had to rush and hide the scrapbook before she caught me, but at least I got a good look at Uncle Ranma… I hope I can meet him some day.

* * *

Now I’m confused. I’m twelve years old, and my parents are still not telling me what happened to Uncle Ranma.

I really want to know, I mean, if he’s dead, then I won’t worry, but… I asked Shinta’s parents about Uncle Ranma, because I wanted to know more, and I remembered there was a picture of the redheaded girl standing next to Shinta’s mom. She wants me to call her Grandmother, but I don’t know her that well.

When I asked her, though, she got all tight-lipped, and stared away, looking like she was about to cry. Her husband mumbled something about him ‘passing on’, and Shinta’s Mom — sorry — ‘Grandmother’ dragged him into the next room and gave him a tongue-lashing.

Shinta whispered to me that he thinks that Ranma is a cousin of his, or something, because he heard his father say something about a training trip. Then he said something about his father’s condition. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but the next thing I know, ‘Grandmother’ Nodoka is chasing a panda across the backyard, throwing rocks at it furiously.

After that, we figured we should probably give them some space, and ask Mom and Dad if _they_ knew anything.

Mom looked confused, and Dad actually tore himself from his research — something about healing frostbite — to look at me. Something in his eyes said that he wanted to tell me, but Mom cut him off, “Tofu-chan, she’s not ready yet. When she’s older…”

Dad looked away, turning back to his computer without saying anything. I really don’t get my parents sometimes. It’s like there’s some big conspiracy going around, and they just want to keep me out of it ‘cause I’m not old enough.

Actually, that’s exactly what’s going on.

Now I _really_ want to know what’s going on. Grandpa Soun would know, but I don’t know if Auntie Kasumi would let me talk to him about it, since I’m positive that it’s related to Auntie Akane, somehow. Anyway, every time I try, Grandpa Soun goes off on this long tirade about how it’s my and Shinta’s duty to carry on the schools, or something. I don’t get _that_ at all.

I mean, Shinta? Ew!

* * *

Mom had some friends over today. It was the purple haired lady, and her ‘husband.’ She’s a nice enough lady, but someone should tell her that her husband is a girl.

Her name is Shampoo, which Mom says used to be a bad joke. Apparently she’s some kind of government figure for the Qinghai Confederacy and works with Saffron now. I don’t remember hearing anything about her in the news, but I believed her when she said that she knew Saffron personally.

Herb’s not very friendly, though she was polite to me. I guess she just doesn’t like being outside of the Qinghai Confederacy.

They’re supposed to be special, like Daddy, though. So I guess that Daddy is one of them. I wonder if I’m fey, too? Mommy says I shouldn’t worry…

* * *

Dad told me what happened to Uncle Ranma tonight. He said that, somehow, Ranma was such a good martial artist that he could make himself cold — and he could withstand arctic temperatures because of his training.

I was kind of confused, till he showed me a picture from another scrapbook, one of Uncle Ranma and Auntie Akane standing next to each other at a festival. I guess they were a couple, which makes sense, since Shampoo, who I thought was Uncle Ranma’s girlfriend, wasn’t. Dad said it was more complicated than that, but that he’d explain it some other time.

Anyway, Dad explained that Ranma knew a technique to make a kind of tornado, and that part of it was mastering the Soul of Ice. So he chilled his soul and got to be some kind of super-martial-artist. Dad showed me another picture, though it was kind of blurry, of Uncle Ranma talking with a little boy that looked like Saffron.

I asked him about that, and Dad explained that after the Fall, the regions of Gansu and Qinghai were united into a single country, more or less under Saffron’s rule. Apparently, it was Uncle Ranma’s doing, because Saffron used to have to stay in his mountain and help his people out, but Uncle Ranma managed to fix things so that he could leave.

I didn’t get that, but I remembered watching one of those cheesy military vids when I was in grade school, and seeing Saffron gesture, simply annihilating whatever was thrown at him… There was another clip of him getting caught in the blast of a patriot missile, and emerging unscathed. Mad, but unscathed.

That vid gave me nightmares for a week, and my dad told me that Uncle Ranma beat him with his bare hands?

I asked him about it, and he mentioned a pair of magical weapons or something. I wasn’t sure how much to believe, until he explained what happened to Uncle Ranma, and why some people insist that he and Auntie Akane aren’t dead. Dad knew one of the tricks that he said Auntie Akane knew, and he showed it to me — froze a glass of water in the living room with the heater on.

After seeing that… It makes a hell of a lot of sense, actually.

Now I know why Dad spends all of his time studying hypothermia and frostbite and things like that… I somehow doubt that it would be enough, since he said that Uncle Ranma got slashed across the chest with a scythe, but… something tells me that I am going to see Uncle Ranma some day anyway.

Dad thinks there’s a way, so I’m gonna try.

Sixteen years old is about the right time to start thinking about what kind of college I want to get into… Mom said that the Tendo holdings are enough that I can go to almost any school I want.

* * *

I was taking a break from studying and watching the television earlier today… Japan has apparently decided that fey are on equal grounds with the rest of humanity.

I thought that was kind of obvious…

Anyway, this could help a bit, since as far as I can tell, Uncle Ranma and Auntie Akane are _certainly_ going to be Fey. If we can get them back.

I should be getting back to work…

* * *

I hate that dream. It’s weird, and it seems like it shouldn’t even be, well, mine.

Something tells me that it’s Uncle Ranma and Auntie Akane, though. I usually can’t sleep after a dream like that, so I check my terminal, and see what my projects have pulled up.

The problem is really technical, and honestly, not interesting… unless you happen to _want_ to study things like this. When you’re chilled, your body processes generally slow down. Your heart will beat more slowly, and your brain will go into a mode that conserves oxygen as much as it can. That’s why you can hold your breath for up to fifteen minutes, or even longer, if you’re in really cold water.

Not that I think anyone should actually _try_ it.

Anyway. Being frozen is a lot different from being chilled, and I seriously doubt that someone could survive for 19 years and still be alive… that way.

My physics professor demonstrated this to us in class. Fruit can ripen a little _after_ it’s picked, and green bananas turn yellow, then brown, and then, well, Mom throws ‘em out once they start getting spots, actually. Anyway, the teacher took a yellow banana, sliced it in half, and stuck a pencil in it.

Then he started gesturing, like it was a hammer. I was kind of bored, but curious at the same time. He stuck the banana into a small container of liquid nitrogen, then proceeded to hammer a nail into a two-by-four with it. That was cool enough, and he did some other fun stuff, too, but what really interested me was the banana. It was frozen for only a few seconds before it started thawing, but…

When it thawed out it was brown.

Turns out that when something living is frozen, the frozen cells are ruptured, and die.

Uncle Ranma and Auntie are frozen solid, and thus, are medically dead.

When someone has a heart attack, they can have their heart restarted with electricity. But they aren’t dead when they’re brought back; their heart has stopped. The cells of the body are still alive to _be_ revived.

Now, it would be a simple enough matter to take a few cells from the bodies — Dad disagrees, but I haven’t seen where they were frozen, yet — and then clone them. But then, it’d be a clone, and he says that that would cause all sorts of trouble. Turns out that Uncle Ranma is Auntie Ranma, too. I’m not sure how that works, but Grandma Nodoka’s husband demonstrated _his_ curse, so I know it does. But what does this mean for Ranma and Akane?

Even beyond the fact that their cells are frozen, and thus, they are medically, and… for all practical purposes, _dead_ … They were frozen solid much more quickly than is normally possible, so there may not be many ruptured cells. If we can rejuvenate the remaining cells, somehow, then they’ll come back… If it’s cold _enough_ then we can flash thaw them, rejuvenate the cells, then kick-start them with a bit of a shock.

I’m not sure how that would work, though. Dad developed a working way to rejuvenate frozen skin, but what about their internal organs, and most importantly, their brains?

I do have some hope for that, but…

I have a lot of work ahead of me.

* * *

Well, so far so good. All I need now is permission from the New Republic of Xinjiang since Dad says that’s where they are. He gave me the coordinates… which puts it pretty close to the western edge… but I’m expecting some trouble with this. NR Xinjiang doesn’t usually get along with the Qinghai Confederacy. The NR Xinjiang have a problem with Saffron specifically, but according to the sat-relays I’ve seen, Uncle Ranma buried himself underneath a structure of solid ice that masses at least twenty thousand kilos. There’s no way we’re going to get to him without their cooperation, and since it’s pretty far from Qinghai, and any of it’s allies, even trying is just going to piss them off.

So I’ve got to get their cooperation. Auntie Ukyou found out what I was up to, and Uncle Ryu insisted that they donate, so we’ve got a grant set up.

I feel bad about accepting money from them, but it looks like selling okonomiyaki makes more money than I had thought… And then she told me that if I bring Uncle Ranma back, it’s her early wedding gift to him.

That threw me off; no one ever told me they weren’t married. He must have been pretty close for Mom and Kasumi to insist that I call him ‘uncle’, when he hadn’t even married Auntie Akane yet.

Anyway, the research grant got some ‘mysterious’ donations from an ‘unknown’ and ‘unnamable’ source. I thanked Shinta for that; turns out that his girlfriend’s loaded. Still, boy’s got guts to be dating Tatewaki’s daughter, from what Mom’s told me about Kuno as a child.

The biggest donation came, of course, from myself. I took the majority of my shares in Tendo Heavy, and set aside some… goods… Pity, really. I suspect most of it will end up going for bribes.

Mom said that I should meet with some of the ‘old Nerima Wrecking Crew’ before I go, but I don’t know many of them. Whoever ‘Ryouga’ is, I haven’t seen more than pictures, and the only letter I got from him said that he felt the dead should be left that way.

Still, I don’t like the idea of going without someone that Uncle and Auntie knew. I want them to wake up to familiar faces, if I can help it.

I guess I’m stalling, because I’m worried… damn politics. Oh well, time for me to go.

Tendo Ranko, signing out… I’ll write more when I get back. Let’s hope!

* * *

#### [Spirit: Yin]

* * *

It is cold… and lonely. There is a nearby presence, but it doesn’t detract from the loneliness. I can’t go to… him.

He sealed me here for a reason, confining my soul to my body, while his bled out, freezing around me in a prison.

I wonder about that. I have a lot of time, and wondering is all I can do; I have no body.

That’s not true. I have a body, but it’s dead. I wish I hadn’t let go of him when I was frozen. But it’s so cold… and so lonely… and I want to reach out to him, but I can’t.

I wish I had a body again… then I could cry. Souls can’t shed tears…

I miss him.

Ranma…

* * *

#### [Progeny: Yin]

* * *

Mother told me that I can’t play with Pei Lin anymore, because her father is a radical.

I don’t understand that, because when I asked Ji Shiang, he told me that a radical was something you did with numbers. He’s always playing with numbers. He says he wants to be smart and get a good job working for the People.

I don’t know what he means by that, because when I try and be bossy, he tells me to do things myself. I’m a person, so he should do what I say, right?

* * *

Father took me on a trip with him today when he went to work. He showed me a big statue that was built a long time ago, just after all of NR Xinjiang was free from ‘China’. The bottom was covered in little tiny names that I could barely read.

He told me they were the names of people who died in the Fall, when the ‘fey’ came into being. We learned about that in class last week, so I know what it is, but it makes me sad. Why did so many people have to die? The fey must be really bad guys.

* * *

Syao Sun reminded me that it had been a few days since I talked to my mother. I’m spending all my extra time after school trying to help Father at his job. He works for the People in a big office. I forgot his title, but he said it meant he was in charge of moving stuff around the country.

I just move stuff around his office. I think he likes having me around, though Syao Sun seems to not like me. I wonder if Mother knows that Father kisses Syao Sun when I’m not supposed to be able to see?

* * *

Father told me today that I should start training for the Academy soon. I thought about trying some other career first… but he’s right. And the Academy will get me away from the house.

Ancestors, I sometimes swear that I can see the bloodstains from where I found my mother after she discovered Father’s affair. Bastard. Getting away will be nice.

My teacher told me a while ago that I should try writing more professionally if I want to do a good job for the People. That means less personal stuff, so I’ll try… But later. Tonight, I have a date!

Jen Di introduced me to a cute guy, and we’re going out. His name is Swou Fong, and he’s from the Cheng family. He’s older, so I can probably ask him something about what China was like before the Fall, too.

* * *

Wrote a letter to Jen Di. Tien Liang is going to get a letter, too.

Long distance relationships never work, and it’s hard enough for a woman to get ahead in the People’s Republic. I shouldn’t think such things… I’m sure it’s just an oversight that will be corrected soon.

I’m going to be posted as an intern next week! The Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I wonder what they’ll have me do.

* * *

My supervisor is Don Hai. He seems to like me… but I’m not sure about that. He’s married.

Mrs. Wang dropped in once to check on him, so I guess he won’t try anything… He did say that he wanted me to join the Ministry once I was done at the Academy. It’s not a bad job, and it’ll keep me away from Father. I like the idea.

* * *

Nothing interesting today. Hardly anybody wants to send our country much mail. Probably trying to deal with their own problems…

Father passed away last week. The house was reclaimed for the People, since it’s too large for just me, and I have an apartment here anyway.

Good riddance.

* * *

A request, today. Turns out that someone from Japan wants access to the glorious New Republic of Xinjiang. She claims that her reason is because she wants to revive the ice-wraith.

I had to laugh at that, and showed it to Don Hai before I dismissed it. He didn’t think it was very funny. Apparently, his family was caught in its path, and the ice-wraith destroyed what meager holdings they had. I can’t imagine that it means that much to him, since the Fall makes us all equal… roughly… but still.

He said that it bore consideration, but he wanted me to recover as much detail as I could about the situation before responding. I don’t like dealing with… them…

* * *

I overheard someone from the expedition comment on it. He said that it had to be seen to be believed. I have to wonder about that. It can’t be that impressive… I’ll ask Don Hai if I can authorize Tac scans… initial recognizance was useless.

Looks like I’m never going to find a chance to find someone to date.

* * *

The Tac–7 reports were inconclusive. I ended up going to the site myself. We don’t have the tech that Miss Tendo is claiming, and we couldn’t bring them back… but they are there. Scary, actually.

Thermal scans indicated that the structure was actually colder than the air around it… and the structures inside were colder still. One of the men touched the ice, which turned out to be a mistake.

We removed him, and there was no permanent damage, but the temperature of the structure dropped substantially. It was only thirty-two below zero, initially. Now it’s holding at about fifty-two.

This is kind of frightening, when you really think about it. This means that, somehow, something in that structure is generating cold.

Not too improbable, and an interesting study… but it _reacts_ to us. Thermals indicate that the core temperature is dropping even more, but only when we get closer.

We managed to get some sonar readings… there are two of them. A man and… well, a boy and a girl, really. There’s also some kind of metal device near them, underneath the ice… but we’re not sure what it is yet.

Miss Tendo’s notes indicate that it’s the property of Saffron… apparently some crude weapon.

* * *

Forgot his name, but we broke up. He says I’m too distracted by my work.

Well, screw him. The People need devoted servants, not weak willed self-centered scum like him. I’m half tempted to call him on it, have him dragged out to the People’s Court and questioned… but it would take valuable time out of my schedule.

* * *

We’ve done some more research on the ‘ice-wraiths’ and gotten the reports back today. Firstly, the boy is named ‘Saotome Ranma.’ Apparently, the girl lost control, somehow, and he froze them both with his power, locking them in place.

It’s interesting, though it truly defies explanation… records indicate that he was able to produce some kind of ‘cold’ at will, and seemingly produced localized weather disturbances.

What sketchy intelligence we have indicates that he fought both Councilman Herb, and Councilwoman Cologne, before she passed away.

It’s… an odd thing, to be dealing with people like that.

We’ve all seen the vids of Saffron’s takeover, and forcible unity of the Qinghai Confederacy… Though it defies logic, we have seen him produce fire at will, and his servants were able to produce some kind of blade from air with their wings.

We might have won a ground war against them, were it not for the Musk and the Joketsuzoku. The Joketsuzoku could make a tank collapse into pieces with their bare hands, and it was damn near impossible to attack them when they could look like they split into nine separate people and circled around you. Some of them knew Ranma’s localized weather disturbance trick, too.

Herb, on the other hand, was just another Saffron with a lot less bloodlust, and greater focus. He could fly without wings and lob bolts of energy that simply melted through whatever armor plating was available. He could even dodge bullets, as could most of the Musk. The few who couldn’t dodge bullets had a nasty habit of not dying from it.

No wonder that the few bloody, decorated heroes of the Qinghai Confederacy were so feared… but here we had access to someone who had defeated them.

Miss Tendo’s plea held a certain amount of interest to me, at that point…

* * *

Jen Di died today. Don Hai was understanding, and gave me a day off when I found out… but I turned it down.

She was executed for Treason against the People. I never realized in all the time that I called her ‘friend’, she was a traitor… Wouldn’t want to mourn a traitor’s death.

* * *

I’ve gotten approval from the board. We’re going to allow Miss Tendo access, and use her to revive Ranma. He’s got too much potential as a weapon to ignore. Records indicate that Akane was not stable, so we’re going to have to destroy her beyond revival.

I’ve been reporting on those two for so long over the last three years, that I don’t even use full names… which is even stranger, since I _know_ they’re fey…

Anyway, we’re going to supply some equipment, but Miss Tendo has a sizable grant backing her up. It’s a pity that we need her expertise on the revival process, but it’s best to have a real expert working on this situation, rather than leave it to our own techs.

Control of the subject is… questionable. We know that it can be achieved, but we aren’t certain which methods will work best. Drugs might affect his performance, since it appears to be a state of mind more than any kind of genetic predisposition, unlike Herb and Saffron.

If it’s something as simple as training, then it’s also possible that we can train others to be like him. He stopped Akane… I found a vid of her, actually. She looks distorted when she walks, like Herb and Saffron do. A reaction from the film, I suppose.

The odd thing is that in the one vid that we do have of her passing through a populated area, she seemed oblivious to the damage that her presence caused. We caught a vid of Ranma, at some point. Happenstance, actually; he was passing through the wake of the ice-wraith’s passage, and a news crew that was reporting several days after the event happened to spot him.

I sent a copy of the vid to Miss Tendo, and she sent me back a copy of a film of Ranma. His presence doesn’t distort the media at all, which leads me to believe that he does have much better control. I’m pleased that he’s the one we decided to capture, then.

Miss Tendo also told me that her parents were on the vid, following Ranma. I had to file forms to get permission to watch it again, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Interesting. I’m looking forward to meeting her.

* * *

#### [Spirit: Yang]

* * *

It’s cold, and lonely. I can sense her, nearby… I wish I could reach her, but I can’t. Until she reaches for me, she’s not ready.

I wish I didn’t have to do what I did.

I want to let us both pass on, but the key hasn’t been brought to us yet.

I love her. I miss her, and it hurts to be like this.

‘So close, and yet, so far.’

That never meant anything to me until this happened.

Akane…


	4. Wave’s End — Starlit Tears

* * *

#### [Chime: One]

* * *

Dreams again.

He wasn’t lost — never as he had been.

But this time… he didn’t know where he was.

Oddly, he still had no real sense of being _lost_ … just not knowing where he was.

He wasn’t certain how such a thing could be… so it must have been a dream.

* * *

#### [Fate’s Question]

* * *

Three sisters surrounded him, each in turn shifting to the last, baffling him.

But beyond that, he knew who they were.

“What do you want with me?”

They froze, becoming static.

The eldest spoke first. “We simply need you to make a choice, poppet.”

* * *

#### [Chime: Two]

* * *

The grass was always greener.

Not that he’d allow himself to believe that, anymore. It wasn’t really greener. Empty promises. The only real things in the world were those that you crafted with your own hands. Real things.

Things that could be touched, carried…

Not the flimsy ethereal stuff of dreams.

* * *

#### [Beacon]

* * *

Sometimes, he noticed, his mind wandered.

And with it, his feet, though never as far as he once had traveled.

He shook his head, turning his attention back to the road, and the call that drew him onward.

“Akari…” he murmured.

* * *

#### [Chime: Three]

* * *

How many chances, he wondered, to change a life?

How many opportunities to change what he had done, what he had been…

And try to make a better person of himself for it?

* * *

#### [Crone]

* * *

“Firstly,” she said, “we offer you the stuff of dreams. To make real that which is… not.”

He blinked, moving to answer, but was hushed by a finger across his lips.

“Listen to all, then decide.”

* * *

#### [Sunlight]

* * *

She hummed softly, washing the dishes, and gasping slightly, as she thought on the thing she had bought earlier that day. And the answer it had given her.

Something that would change her marriage, she felt, and only for the better.

But he seemed so distant, lately…

* * *

#### [Chime: Four]

* * *

“It’s fading,” he mused, eyeing the target before him.

He tried again, gathering his will, his anger, his depression, his very _essence_ … and throwing it all into one concentrated point.

A ball of sickly light projected from his fingers, becoming insubstantial and winking out before reaching the stone he faced. “Huh,” he mumbled. “Maybe… maybe it never really _was_ real?”

* * *

#### [Mother]

* * *

“We can let you grow in ways you had thought closed to you forever.”

He nodded dubiously, remembering to remain silent.

* * *

#### [Fireside]

* * *

“Mmm…” she murmured contently, leaning into his arm, as he enfolded her gently.

He smiled, smelling deeply of her hair, and staring into the fire they sat near. “I think… I think I’m happy.”

“Mm? I _know_ I am.”

* * *

#### [Chime: Five]

* * *

He grunted, barely managing to lever the gigantic creature before him over, pushing it back into the pen it had come from. “That’s not good,” he muttered, catching his breath.

“Dearest?”

He shook his head, staring at his hands, ignoring the sweat that had formed on his face despite the nearly constant winter of the last two years. “I thought I was stronger…”

* * *

#### [Maiden]

* * *

“We can give you back what you’ve lost. Everything you’ve had to do without…”

He blinked, considering. His lost strength, his power… all of that could be returned to him?

* * *

#### [Impetus]

* * *

“Dearest?” she whispered into the darkness, his form next to hers on their small bed.

“Mmm?”

“I wanted to tell you first… you’re going to be a father.”

He smiled, embracing her in the night, happiness overwhelming all else for the moment.

* * *

#### [Chime: Six]

* * *

He nodded, dismissing her worried question. “Not as tough as I thought I was.”

“Dearest?”

“Everything is fine, I think.”

* * *

#### [Hero’s answer]

* * *

“No…” he said, smiling. “It’s not worth it. Sorry. I don’t want to be anything other than what I am. I’m… happy this way.”

In one voice, they returned, “As it will be.”

* * *

#### [Starlight]

* * *

“Dearest?” she murmured sleepily, as he stirred near her.

“Nothing,” he whispered, watching her outline in the faint light of the stars, tears of joy blurring his vision. “I love you.”

“I love you too, dearest,” she answered, moving to be closer with him again.


	5. Earth and Sky — Twilight

* * *

#### [Predawn]

* * *

_Legend speaks to us of Shen-Lung, the great dragon that supports the palace of the gods in the heavens._

* * *

His eyes glowed. He was guessing about that.

He couldn’t see his eyes himself, but people were shying away more than normal.

The thing of it was… he couldn’t quite decide how that should make him feel.

* * *

_Shen-lung was the greatest of the dragons, and his powers were nearly as great as the gods’ were._

* * *

She worked the surface before her slowly, scraping it clean, though her thoughts were elsewhere.

Her love… was gone. As Nabiki told it, frozen to death along with… her.

She paused, staring at her reflection for a moment. What should she feel? If he had abandoned her and lived, then it would be anger… but he loved deeply enough to throw his life away for… her.

* * *

_At the Wheel of the Ages turned, Man changed, no longer believing in the fey as they once had._

* * *

He wondered, for a moment, if his shadow were a true reflection of who he was.

When he looked, it showed the outline of a person… an outline most were loathe to allow to fall across their paths.

But his reflection in pools spoke of something else.

* * *

_Disbelief in the fey changed them… warped them… and slowly, unmade them._

* * *

She mused idly, toying with a sharp implement of many uses.

For cutting flesh, of course.

But animal, or vegetable, or… her own?

* * *

#### [Sunrise]

* * *

Ryu glanced about him, ignoring the dragon-shadow that trailed him, moving against the sun rather than with it. Something that he would learn to live with, he decided. Not something to worry about. Now, at any rate.

He frowned, wondering where he would go next. He could feel himself… changing… as time passed. He wasn’t certain how, or even why… but he could feel more.

He _felt_ his steps on the Earth, not just in his own feet, but in the soil itself. “Hmm…” he mused, wondering. Hunger no longer touched him as it had, unless he wanted it to. But he longed to feel that, sometimes. “Food,” he murmured, heading back towards the city. Perhaps a time to meet with old acquaintances.

* * *

_“And then what happened to the dragon, Daddy?”_

_“Well, as I remember it, the dragon that the princess so loved perished… he fell to the ice, and could struggle no more.”_

_“And the princess?”_

_“Ah, there’s another story…”_

* * *

She cocked her head to one side, offering the same smile she always did for her customers. That he felt more… off… than the normal customer meant nothing to her. Her own ‘otherness’ was obvious — all of them felt it. Closeness to Ranma, perhaps? Or perhaps it was just the place, and Ranma was another victim.

He smiled genially, studying her grill more than her. “You take good care of this,” he said, gesturing.

She raised an eyebrow at that. “I do,” she admitted. “You’re… ‘Gifted’?”

* * *

_“But what’s the story?”_

_“Well, then the princess met another dragon, and this one was much quieter, and still. Not the rushing, raging torrent that her first was, but a strong, steady presence.”_

_“What’s a torrent?”_

_“An uncontrolled storm. And the first dragon loosed his might and perished because of it.”_

* * *

He frowned. “Gifted? What do you mean?”

She waved dismissively. “It’s mostly something they don’t like to talk about, but sometimes… people are starting to change. You know. Develop powers and stuff.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I have a friend who can see with his eyes closed. Things like that?”

He nodded slowly. “I suppose. I don’t know what it is… just that… I can hear things. Metal, earth… you know?” She shrugged, handing him a plate, burdened with its fresh meal. “For example,” he said, taking a bite of the okonomiyaki, “I can tell that you no longer cook with the same passion you once did.”

* * *

_“And what was the new dragon like?”_

_“He was just as much a jackass as the first one.”_

_“What?”_

_“He annoyed the princess to no end, because he was simply too calm, too… placid.”_

* * *

Ryu snatched the flung spatula out of the air almost absently, the blade missing his head by mere inches. “I’m guessing that’s a sore spot.”

The girl — woman, truly — growled at him. “I don’t need to listen to this! I don’t need to listen to _you_!”

“No,” he said, agreeably. “You don’t. Do you want me to leave?”

* * *

_“Did the princess banish the new dragon?”_

_“No, she decided to be patient, and bear with his foolishness.”_

_“And then what happened?”_

_“What do you suppose happened?”_

* * *

He laughed, not moving in time to avoid being struck over the head with a much larger spatula, and get knocked to the floor. “Ow!”

She snorted, shaking her head and sheathing the weapon. “Jackass,” she muttered.

There was a long moment of silence as he lay on the floor. “So,” she said, finally breaking the stillness. “You going to keep talking?”

* * *

_“They lived happily ever after?”_

_“Um… not right away.”_

_“What happened, Daddy?”_

_“Ah… let’s tell that story later.”_

* * *

#### [Noon]

* * *

“So,” he said plainly, eating another Okonomiyaki. “This one tastes like… curiosity, and good will. I suppose you’re getting over him?”

She scowled, but nodded after a moment. “I guess.”

He grinned, setting the empty plate down. “There you have it.”

Shaking her head, she leaned back against the counter, sighing. “Why do you think we’ve changed the way we have? I mean… I think that you’ve changed more, but…” she trailed off, cocking her head at Ryu curiously.

He shrugged after a moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I feel… like I’m part of something greater. Like parts of me are missing, or something.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t know why I was given… anything. I just know that I was.”

She sighed, frowning petulantly. “Now that’s just not fair. What was I given?”

“A really nice —” he cut himself off, coloring, and choked out, “a really nice sense of humor.”

She eyed him skeptically, her eyes narrowing as she reached for her spatula. “Oh?” she asked.

“Um… yes.”

* * *

“You come in here all the time. Where do you _live_ , anyway?”

He looked away for a moment, digging in his pocket for change.

“Around,” he admitted after a moment. “Mostly wherever I can find a spot to sleep.”

She frowned, wondering at that. “I see,” she offered after a moment.

He smiled genially, something about him shifting and becoming… less noticeable… as a trio of customers walked in.

Ukyou turned towards them, greeting automatically, “Welcome to Ucch— Nabiki! How have you been?”

The brown-haired woman brushed her hair back, her young daughter asleep and nestled in her arms. “Pretty good, Ukyou. How has everything been going for you?”

Ukyo’s smile widened, turning more sincere. “Fine, fine. Just talking with Ryu-chan. Who’s the kid?”

Nabiki flushed, handing the sleeping girl to her husband. Tofu accepted the child, taking a seat near Ryu. “Well,” Nabiki explained, twiddling her thumbs. “Um… after… after the…” Her flush and smile faded. “Tofu and I… Ukyou, meet our daughter, Ranko.”

Ukyou blinked in shock, her mouth falling open. “You…” she managed after a moment, staring at Tofu incredulously. “And you?”

Nabiki’s guilty flush and smile returned. “Um… yes.”

Ryu dropped his guise of subtlety, watching the departing trio. Ukyou sighed, shaking her head. “I want a family like that, someday.”

* * *

The man rolled his eyes. “That’s _easy_ ,” he said. “You just have to find someone, and go for it.”

“It’s that easy?” she asked, bemused.

“Yep.”

* * *

#### [Sunset]

* * *

Ukyou waited calmly.

War.

It was in the news, it was all people would talk about… and it was probably coming to Japan, soon.

It had already killed her business…

Sighing, she took a seat at one of the stools opposite the grill. Konatsu had taken his leave earlier, and Ukyou hadn’t minded, since business was so slow.

Someone plodded in to her restaurant, and she raised an eyebrow in response. “Was wondering when you’d come.”

Ryu looked pale, nodding. “I… hurt,” he offered by way of apology.

“What are you talking about?”

He slumped to a seat near her. “They… they wound the Earth.”

“What?”

He gestured to the small radio that Ukyou had turned off to save electricity, and explained, as the radio seemed to tune itself, “They are using nuclear weapons.”

A burst of static, and then a voice came, confirming his words.

* * *

He opened his eyes, seeing the dim light of the fading sun against the ceiling. “The hurt…” he began, his tongue feeling thick, almost as though it were trying to keep him from speaking, “is lessened…”

Ukyou shifted from her position at his side, laying a cool cloth over his forehead. “Hush… just rest, you’ll get better.”

“Yes…” he said, fading back into sleep. “I will…”

* * *

Ryu idled, lounging against the far wall of the restaurant, still suffering momentary bouts of dizziness.

Ukyou studied him for a long moment, considering. “You know what?” she asked.

He glanced towards her. “What’s that?”

“I’ve decided.”

He blinked, surprised. “Decided what?”

“To start a family.”

“Oh,” he said, confused. “That’s… good.” After a moment, he frowned. “With who?”

Rolling her eyes, she looked out at the sky, already darkening from the onset of the nuclear winter that the wars had promised. “You, jackass.”

* * *

#### [Twilight]

* * *

_In a forest north and east of Tokyo, one ravaged by the wars opened his eyes, and saw. “Brothers?” he whispered._

* * *

There simply wasn’t enough faith, enough strength… enough _need_ for him.

* * *

_The animals of the forest responded to his bidding, as he rose, riding an errant gust of wind across the lake that housed a… cousin… to him._

* * *

And in the end, Shen-Lung unmade himself, casting himself into four pillars, which would maintain and fulfill his function when it was needed. No longer the dragon, he was…

* * *

_“Yes… ” he said slowly, as sixteen bright eyes watched him fearfully from beneath the water. “You are only my cousin. You are not my brother.”_

* * *

The King of Cups, of Swords, of Coins, of Staves…


	6. Act III: Body and Mind

Nabiki and Tofu slid to a halt near a small grove of evergreens as the avalanche above them died out. The Tendo girl gasped for breath, then staggered upright, surveying her surroundings.

After regaining his feet, Tofu removed the ring from the Kinjakan and tossed it to Nabiki, then pointed to a marker blazed onto a nearby tree. “We can be in the village we set out from by night, if we hurry.”

Nabiki frowned, shaking her head. “What about Ranma and Akane?”

The older man turned to look upslope at a thin spire of ice, jutting out from above the white cloud that seemed impossibly far away. It stood as a memorial to the fallen youths. “I don’t know. Who can say what the future holds.”

The — now youngest — of the Tendo sisters slumped back to her knees. “They’re… dead?”

Tofu considered for a moment, then hefted the uncapped staff in his hands. “Yes… But I think Ranma had to have had a plan. I just don’t know what it was.”

Nabiki was lost in thought. She had the will. There were factors against her, but there was some potential. And where there was a will…

* * *

She woke in a cold sweat, the way she always did when she woke from that dream. Sitting up slowly to avoid waking her husband, she pawed at the blackness to the side of her bed for a moment before hitting something. It began to glow, softly at first, then more brightly as she stared at the luminous numbers on the clock’s display.

Sighing, she climbed to her feet, padding towards the doorway as the light from the clock faded, and a soft glow formed in response to her footsteps, outlining the hall.

She grabbed a robe from a hook and threw it on, closing the door softly behind her. Once the door was closed, the light began increasing in brightness slowly, allowing her time to adjust. She stared at the lights for a long moment, remembering the lights of her childhood, and their simple harsh brightness.

Shaking her head, she tramped into the kitchen, where the coffee machine was already percolating. She frowned thoughtfully. “I wonder if all of this has made me soft?”

Her musing was interrupted as her husband slipped into the room silently, his presence subtle enough that he triggered none of the sensors she had. She frowned at that, cocking her head to one side, as he smirked at her. “Perhaps, perhaps not. Looking at the alternatives, I’m pleased things are the way that they are.”

She turned away, ignoring him until her coffee was ready. Sipping at it, she relaxed, making a contented humming noise. In response, the sensors activated the blinds, drawing them up and flooding the apartment with the pre-dawn glow.

Tofu stared at the rising sun thoughtfully, absently putting his arm around his wife’s shoulder as she leant comfortably against him. “Morning,” she said at length.

“Hmm…” he mused, frowning at the electric lights. “I wonder if they’re learning not to see me.”

She turned to look at him. “I know you’re going to be one… and I know that Ranma and Akane are. What about Ranko?”

He tightened his grip on her, holding her tightly, and she had to wonder how something that firm could not be real. “I don’t know. I think that Ranma is the center, somehow.”

“Even in death?”

“It’s a common enough theme,” Tofu said slowly. “Heroes aren’t always stopped merely by death…”

“What about Akane? She wasn’t a hero.”

He was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know. We can’t say who Ranma is, yet. We only know what _some_ of the Qinghai Confederacy are. Saffron is—”

She cut him off. “Everyone is someone, right? What about me? I don’t want to be separate from you.” She pushed away from him, staring into the murky depths of her coffee cup. “And I’m not anyone.”

“I don’t know,” Tofu said softly.

* * *

She brushed her hair back, sighing happily. The quay was much lower than it had been in her parents day. The cold of nuclear winter in her earliest youth had restored the once melting ice caps, however temporarily.

She glanced at the ancient shoreline, some meters higher up the beach then where the water currently lay, and smirked. Another few centimeters this year. Eventually it would be restored to the way it had been before the Fall.

Shaking herself out of her reverie, she approached the rounded skimmer at the end of the quay, bobbing with the motion of the water. There was a small shack at the end, near the craft. Much too small and crude to house a person. Perhaps it was an office.

She knocked at the door, and a muffled voice answered her from inside. “Jus’ a minute.”

Waiting patiently, she turned to study the skimmer itself. It looked outdated, but the finish was new, and it was compact. It had a theoretical capacity of eight people plus freight, but was small enough to be run capably by a single person. A ‘corsair’, she remembered. Tendo Heavy had stopped producing them some years back, as the demand went for either heavier and more durable craft, or lighter and faster vehicles.

The door opened partially, and a tall, lanky man squeezed out through the small gap. He frowned as a long ribbon at his sleeve caught momentarily, then freed himself. He nodded once, tugging at a small metallic turtle pendant at his neck. “Yo,” he said, his eyes traveling up and down, exploring her body shamelessly.

The girl smirked, her stance widening as she placed her hands on her hips. “I hear you’re a pilot. That’s your craft?”

He jerked a nod, pulling his attention from her figure, outlined clearly in the bodysuit she had chosen for the occasion. Meeting her eyes, he frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. She eyed him in return, noting his odd, loose fitting outfit. “Where are you from?” she asked, wondering at the flowing cloth.

“Out, mostly. I’m one o’ ‘them’, Missy, if that bothers ya. Should know before ya try an’ hire me.”

She shrugged indifferently. “It’s been happening more lately. My dad is, too. We think I might be, but aren’t sure. Some of our friends from the Qinghai Confederacy told us about it. They saw it first. They say it’s weaker towards NR Xinjiang, and that’s where we’re going. Can you operate there?”

“Dunno. Never tried it.” His eyes flicked across hers, his smile widened slightly. “Mos’ folks get all nervousy roun’ us. Anyway, Xinjiang’s kinda hot, ya know? What kinda run is it?”

“It’s clean, not hot,” she said, frowning somewhat. “You’d have to be an idiot to try and go up against Xinjiang without cleaning things up with them first.”

“Heh. I like yer style. Name’s Keitaro Koara. Keitaro’s given name, Koara’s family. Ma’s from Out, too, so she names me after a frien’.”

Blinking, she extended a hand to shake his warmly. “Tendo Ranko, Tendo’s the family name. Don’t you want to know why we’re going to Xinjiang?”

He blinked, his eyes seeming to nearly glow for a moment in the sunlight. “‘S about Ranma, ain’t it?”

* * *

“So… what does it mean to be ‘Fey’, anyway?”

“Well, it’s not exactly a _scientific_ condition, Ranko. Otherwise we’d have an answer for everything. That’s the way it works, though…”

“So you’re telling me that the only reason it took so long is because we needed to find a technical solution, not a mythical one?”

“For the most part… yes.”

“Daddy! I can hardly believe this… I might have been… wait, how can you be, if you’re that founded in science?”

“It’s something that defies explanation. It won’t work for you, either. Either you are, or you aren’t. Things like ‘science’ and ‘magic’ can really be the same at an advanced enough level.”

“Oh…”

“Aside from which, do you _want_ to be fey?”

“I… I couldn’t complain, Daddy…”

* * *

“Mom? Everything… everything is ready. I’m going to send most of the equipment over freight. I hired a pilot to handle a personal skimmer. I’ve heard that he’s good… and I trust him because he’s… you know.”

The face on the view screen flickered for a moment, the connection negotiating some difficulty, and when it returned, Ranko’s mother nodded gravely. “Take care of yourself, Ranko. I wish you had time to visit us before… Well. Good luck.”

Ranko smirked, seeing the lines of worry etched in her mother’s face. “Take it easy, Mom. I’ll be just fine. I’ll be back before you know it! I have to go, now. Love you, and tell Daddy I love him too, okay?”

* * *

“Chairman Saffron?”

He glanced over, his wings flapping once irritably. It was an odd thing, to not be a part of the cycle. Without needing to burn himself out over ten years… “When we are alone, Herb, please address me as Saffron.”

“Saffron.”

Shaking his head, Saffron turned to look at the slightly shorter man. “What is it, then?”

The man frowned, tugging idly at one dragon-scale bracer. “I think one of them is coming back.”

Saffron raised an eyebrow. “One of ‘them’?”

“Yes… another of the minor set.”

Saffron’s brow furrowed in thought. “I see. What does this mean?”

“Well, you know that from a scientific and technical standpoint that we can’t exist. It seems that there are pillars that can allow us to be… when we should not.”

“This is not something new to me.”

“Yes, of course. You are a not pillar, though I am. Cologne was not, nor is my wife.”

“I’m not? I’m of the major set, then?”

“Indeed. This leaves three pillars unaccounted for.”

Saffron mulled that over for a long moment. “There are four, not three?”

“Not a trinity. Corners of a square.”

“Ah…” Saffron’s eyes became distant, as he considered. “Very well, then. If I am not a pillar, what am I?”

“The Emperor, of course.”

“Fah. That title, perhaps, was once appropriate. Now…”

“Of course, not with this regime. At any rate. I suspect that my place is then… Swords.”

Saffron considered that for a moment. “Ah, a prince of the Musk. Then you would be…” He trailed off, nodding to himself. “What, then, of this ‘other’?”

“I believe that Ranma is another like myself. Cups. For… he is similar and opposite me in many ways.”

Saffron stared at Herb for a long moment. “Then we are lost, for he is dead.”

“Not… necessarily. I’ve been speaking with his family…”

* * *

The cold is confining beyond belief. I don’t know how much longer I can handle it. It’s so… so empty, so lonely…

But I remain, forever away from his touch. I am alone… and it hurts.

* * *

Keitaro whooped, hunching over the control console and grinning like a maniac. A monstrous wave came out of nowhere, threatening to capsize the skimmer, and he gunned the accelerator, riding up the arc of the approaching wall of water and flying across the ocean.

Ranko held herself steady, barely keeping the seasickness at bay, and clung to the handhold by her seat with all her might. “Where did that wave come from?” she yelled, trying to be heard over Keitaro’s mad whooping.

“Out, likely. Them bigguns like to play at the edges, ya know.” He thumbed a switch, causing the levs to activate, and saving the craft from smashing into the sea below. Ranko sighed in relief at that; the ship would survive probably any impact, and she might, too. The cargo in the back, however, was more fragile.

“How long till we reach the mainland?” she asked, dismissing Keitaro’s talk about the edges. If there were boundaries, they would be everywhere, not simply at sea.

“Eh… prolly another hour’r so.” He stretched, stepping away from the steering yoke and haphazardly slapping a large yellow button. “We got some time. Wanna talk?”

Ranko shrugged, loosening the straps binding her to the seat. “I suppose. Why did you wait so long to activate the levs?”

Keitaro grimaced, flopping into a nearby seat. “Dunno. I like bein’ part a’ the sea, ya know? Flyin’ over the water is great, but skimmer’s built to float. Gotta use it. No sense bein’ able to, an’ not.”

She shook her head. “Okay. We’re going to need to stop in Lesser Japan before crossing into Greater Hong Kong. Our guide in NR Xinjiang is named ‘Shia Hai’. Even though it’s closer to travel through Qinghai, and we have allies there… we’re going in through the south, through… Xizang.”

“‘Shia Hai’? ‘Sea o’ Summer’? Got yer classic irony, there. Anyway… Tibet, eh? Ma always wan’ed to go there. Dunno why, though.”

“Er… yes. At any rate… we’ll pick up some things and another skimmer will join us as we head in.”

Keitaro grimaced. “Another skimmer? Wha’s wrong with the Tama?”

“Honestly?”

“Wait… wait… I get it. Some o’ yer crew don’ like us, right?”

“Ah… yes. Sorry.”

“‘Sa’right. Happens lots.”

* * *

Keitaro leant against the skimmer, wearing a heavy coat and warmer clothing as he conceded to the intense cold inland.

Ranko shivered herself, her teeth chattering. “It’s colder than I thought it would be,” she said.

The man snorted, shaking his head. “Ain’t col’ enough. Tama’s gotta cool ‘er engines a bit. Let ‘er res’ ‘fore we go to Xinjiang.”

Crossing her arms beneath her chest, Ranko looked around the icy and snowed slope that the skimmer sat on. “Tibet,” she said softly. “I always expected… I don’t know. I thought it would have more people in it.”

Keitaro snorted again. “Don’ know ‘bout that. Only reason I’m lettin’ the Tama rest up is in case we gotta run from Xinjiang or anythin’. We go to Qinghai if things get bad, eh?”

Ranko nodded, leaning against the skimmer near Keitaro and surprising herself with its warmth. “Yes, we have allies there.”

* * *

Surveying the site, she nodded. The temporary facility to house the workers would be… sufficient. At no small cost to the People, but for the weapon that they were attempting to recover, it would be worthwhile.

She brushed a strand of her hair out of her face and grimaced unhappily. Unruly, unkempt. It would have been shorter for her tastes, except that they had decided she should look more like one of the Japanese girls to make Tendo feel more relaxed.

Ranko was, of course, the biggest obstacle to a smoothly running operation. And sadly necessary since she was the only one with the technical expertise to back the goals of the mission.

Shivering slightly against the chill of the air, she sighed. Tomorrow, she would arrive with a pair of skimmers. They were reluctant to allow them into their territory with their own craft, but Tendo had paid them nicely with some of Tendo Heavy’s finest.

Enough to make a small difference, since some of the weaponry could prove to be effective against the Musk… But Tendo was allied with Qinghai. That much was known. Would she knowingly provide weapons that could damage her allies? Still… there was her curiosity to be assuaged.

* * *

There it was. A towering column of ice, monumental in every conceivable sense. Forcibly turning her attention away, she focused on the slim, composed woman before her.

Shia Hai said nothing, instead nodding and pausing her introductions to the facility to stare at the structure herself. “The ice…” she said slowly, her accent calculated and practiced, “we’ve tried to cut our way in a little, but the tools break.” She nodded to herself once, her eyes playing across the upper spires of the mass of frozen water. “Ice cold— The ice gets colder the closer we get. Hardens. Shatters our tools. You have a plan?”

Ranko shivered, but managed a weak nod. “Yes, I have a plan.” She glanced back to the skimmer, Keitaro moodily perched on the prow and looking down at the snow. Shia Hai shot a glare towards the young man that was nothing short of a sneer, and looked away quickly. “Is something wrong?”

“No, Miss Tendo. Everything… is fine. We have little trust of… the Outers.”

The Tendo girl simply nodded, understanding. Perhaps the reason that there were so few fey in Xinjiang was truly due to killing, as the rumors contested… She banished that line of thought. First things first, and that meant… “Don’t worry. He’s promised me he’ll stay with his skimmer. In the meantime, the Tama has what we’ll need later — I’ll unpack it myself. The Orion is carrying all of the excavation tools.”

Shia Hai smiled grimly. “Then we should get to work.”

* * *

“Miss Tendo?”

The young woman broke herself out of her reverie, and turned to face the technician. Her tone was carefully level, not admitting a hint of emotion as she glanced at Shia Hai, to her side. “Yes?” The woman followed her _everywhere_.

The tech swallowed nervously, wiping his hands against his lime-green lab-coat in a nervous gesture. He falteringly offered, in his thickly accented Japanese, “The… sign seem stable.”

Her eyes swung to the display before her and she gave a curt nod, replying in his own Mandarin and causing Shia Hai to frown. “Begin the procedure.”

* * *

Death is an odd thing, when one is bound to a dead body. Akane found it best to contemplate silently… though there was never and response when she tried to be ‘loud’… she simply felt safer thinking her thoughts softly. Ranma was near her — impossibly near, mere centimeters between their bodies… but out of her reach forever.

She could sense his presence, his spirit, surrounding her. Nearly enveloping her. Tantalizingly close, like lovers whose lips almost touch in a kiss, painfully sweet in closeness… but not enough. She could reach out towards him, spread her own spirit beyond her body to close the distance… but she didn’t know if he would accept her.

Was he her lover, come to protect her in the end from herself? Or was he her jailer, protecting everyone else from her? If she could have answered that question… but she couldn’t, and she remained floating in a void of contemplation, so close… so painfully close… and did not reach out to him.

* * *

Ranko grimaced, wondering at the stares she attracted. She wore skin-tight body armor; Tendo Heavy’s very best, which was much more revealing than anything that the locals seemed to be familiar with. The thermal insulation was almost enough to counter the cold, and she wasn’t about to abandon the suit, but the stares were beginning to wear thin. Xinjiang was not used to seeing women dressed in anything so… non-conservative.

Returning to her quarters aboard the Tama, she switched on the intercom, listening to the technicians as they worked and searching through her clothing for something that would fit over her body-suit and — hopefully — make her less of an eyesore. To them, at least.

Faint static muffled the voices on the intercom slightly, though she could make them out without straining.

“Ten meters.”

“Looking good… holding… stress is about 40% of capacity. That’s pretty severe for this kind of ice.”

“Tango, check the temperature on that shaft, it’s wobbling a little too much for my tastes.”

“Ah… damn. We’re looking at about — Get your men out of there NOW!”

“Tango, roger that. Evac!”

“Status?”

“Another… 6 meters.”

“Main shaft? It’s at about 16 degrees.”

“Mm… Tango, maybe that procedure was immature?”

“That’s in Kelvin, not Fahrenheit or Celsius.”

“I see. Halt immediately, and withdraw. The signs aren’t as good as they thought, are they?”

Ranko sunk her head, resting her face on her hands. They were trying so hard… Dragging herself up from her despair, she considered her final option. They wouldn’t like it, but the ice was impervious to all other attempts…

Pressing a button, she snapped out over the intercom, “The operation is over. There’s only one way through this.”

For a moment, there was absolute silence. Then all of the lines came to life at once. “Understood, Miss Tendo.”

* * *

Ranma felt himself drifting, surrounding Akane. His body — and his sprit — tantalizingly close… but not willing to touch. Akane was safe here. To be any other way… He would have sighed, were his body not dead, and he focused on keeping the cold active.

He wondered to himself if he had become an ice-demon, a spirit that would haunt the mountain and any who dared to climb it… but he pushed that thought away, and instead focused his attention on Akane. She was so close… he longed to reach out to her, but knew better.

Being together with Akane forever. So close and so far at the same time. He pondered, trying to decide if it were heaven or hell, and how long he’d be there. He pushed those thoughts aside, too, and turned his attention inward. Even in death, he had work to be done.

* * *

Shia Hai took a long drag from her cigarette, staring at the hand-typed report on the desk before her. The room was locked, the security disabled, and the typewriter inaccessible to all but herself. No wires or connections to tell anyone what she had typed, aside from those she delivered the note to herself.

She took another drag, mumbling aloud to herself as she read. “So, it is the findings of myself that while not entirely trustworthy, there is no immediate danger in granting the request provided we apply certain severe limitations.”

Another drag, and the cigarette was stubbed out as she paused to expel the smoke. “This is also the most expedient path, and while some risks are posed, it is the opinions of this office that it is the scenario with the least amount of potential to fail. Extensive measures will have to be taken to ensure…” she trailed off, frowning. “Did I spell that right? Damn it…”

Sighing, she set the page to one side of the typewriter, mumbling to herself as she began typing again.

Once done, and satisfied, she crumpled the older papers into a ball and tossed them into the rubbish bin, cracking a window open despite the chill to let the smoke fade. Tucking the newly typed pages into an envelope, she rose. Stretching, she placed the package of cigarettes into her pocket, the envelope securely in hand, and wandered into the hall, closing the door firmly behind her, checking to make sure that it was locked.

And with her gone, a small flying creature crawled through the narrow gap in the window, making a beeline towards the trash bin before leaving again.

* * *

Keitaro sat at the pilot’s seat, rifling through some creased and crumpled papers, a wooden pipe unlit and clenched in his teeth as he mumbled softly.

Ranko stretched, ducking to clear the bulkhead before the main cabin, and called out, “Morning, Keitaro. Any word on that package yet? Shia Hai said that there was a lot of paperwork involved before we could authorize what we’re planning.”

Keitaro shrugged, wadding up the paper and tossing it into the air. “Nothin’ doin’, yet. Figger a week, maybe two, then things get movin’ ‘gain.” He swatted the ball of paper with his pipe, not glancing as it flew into a small metal rubbish bin, already aflame.

Ranko smirked. “Can do that even here, eh?”

“Ya, easy stuff.” Keitaro seemed tense and distracted, looking elsewhere.

“I thought you didn’t smoke?” Ranko asked, wondering about the pipe.

Keitaro shrugged, gesturing towards Ranko with the pipe, clean as the day it was made, with no signs of soot or tobacco upon it. “Don’. Jus’ liketa have this aroun’ for stuff like that.”

* * *

Keitaro stretched languorously, his palms smacking against the steering yoke of the craft. Ranko had taken to keeping the young pilot company, preferring his presence to that of Shia Hai. Shia Hai was simply too… off… somehow, beneath her seemingly friendly and calm exterior.

Not that Keitaro didn’t seem to have his share of secrets, but she trusted him. More than anyone else at the site other than the few technicians she had brought. And they preferred their own company the most.

Sighing, she studied Keitaro as he looked out at the snowy landscape before the skimmer. “Time to power down,” he muttered, his hands working at a switch beneath the control yoke.

“Power down? You mean you’ve left the skimmer running since we’ve gotten here?” Ranko asked, surprised.

“Yup,” Keitaro confirmed, as the low whine of the skimmer’s engines faded into her hearing range before grinding to a halt. “Gotta give the engines a lil’ rest, and reboot the main system.”

He yawned, thumbing a few more switches, and the consoles all flickered for a moment before turning black, shortly to be replaced with reboot diagnostics and onscreen displays. Ranko watched, fascinated, until the boot sequence was complete, and the main computer chirped, “Myu!”

She giggled. “What’s that supposed to be?”

Keitaro shrugged, leaning back into his chair and monitoring some screen idly. “Some pet o’ my father’s, from what I hear.” He mumbled, shaking his head. “It’s col’ out there today.” With that, he thumbed the engines back on, and they whirred back to life. “We’re good,” he muttered, seemingly satisfied, relaxing back into his seat.

* * *

Shia Hai grumbled, reading through the documents before her. “Yes,” she said slowly, “it’s all in order. Let her through, with… the weapon.”

The heavily armed and armored guards nodded, four of them following a short distance behind the Joketsuzoku woman. Their states were not in such extreme distrust of one another that they were not allowed to travel into each other’s lands… but the people of NR Xinjiang had no great trust for the fey.

The woman ignored them, one hand idly tracing the scrollwork along the heavy metal ring belted to her waist. “I have only half of the tool,” she warned Shia Hai. “The other half is being carried by my husband.”

Shia Hai grimaced distastefully, but hid her distaste after a moment. “I see.” She followed in the snow alongside the guards, behind the Joketsuzoku warrior. “Is the other half going to be needed?”

“Yes. My husband will deliver it.”

Shia Hai’s grimace returned more forcefully. “We only authorized one f—” She caught herself, and coughed loudly, as the Amazon turned, staring at her expectantly.

“Only one what?” she asked innocently, her eyes seemingly trusting.

Collecting herself, Shia Hai explained, “We can only allow one… esteemed warrior such as yourself to set foot within this perimeter. If there are to be more, there is paperwork to be filled out.” She nodded, satisfied that she had covered her mistake.

“He will not set foot within your perimeter, then.”

Shia Hai bit her lip. “It is… it is said you cannot lie.”

The other woman nodded, her seemingly liquid eyes still locked on Shia. “That it is.”

“Then, I have your word?”

Smiling softly, the Joketsuzoku warrior nodded again. “You have my word. My husband will not set foot within your camp, unless war is declared upon us.”

Only partially reassured, Shia Hai nodded. “Very well, then.”

* * *

Keitaro watched Ranko as she idly toyed with the ring. “S’that?” he asked, slurring his voice even more than normal.

She seemed not to notice, removing the ring from her lap and holding it up to the light of the setting sun. “Apparently, this is half of the Kinjakan. We’re going to use it to cut through the ice.” Her eyes became distant, as she remembered her father’s retelling of the story. “This is the last thing Uncle Ranma held before he…” She trailed off, simply staring at the ring in a certain grim fascination.

Keitaro raised an eyebrow. “Ranma used it, eh?”

She nodded, frowning, and lowering the ring to her lap. “How do you know about him, anyway?”

He blinked, seemingly surprised. “Oh, ya know how it is. Just somethin’ I heard once. From my mom, and you know how he was with the ladies…” With that, he shrugged, staring off into the snow outside the skimmer.

Ranko dismissed it for the moment, slowly standing and holding the giant ring in one hand. “Well,” she commented, stretching, “I’m going to talk to the woman who brought this. She’s probably the only one who can use it, anyway.”

* * *

Ranko watched the flaxen-haired woman, wondering who she was, and how she had retrieved the other half of the weapon. The woman smiled politely at her, then turned towards the ice, striding forward purposefully.

Several rows of technicians, Shia Hai, and a number of guards lined the perimeter, watching closely. The warrior-woman ignored them, tapping the ring of the staff against the outer edge of the ice. It seemed to… waver… once, and then the staff emitted a low hum, and a very faint glow.

The assembled people edged away, giving the woman room to work as the edge of the ring bit into the structure before it, hissing steam rising from the point of contact.

Ranko watched attentively as the woman slowly worked her way deeper into the structure. Shia Hai and a pair of her guards followed he woman carefully, causing Ranko to worry. Why weren’t they sending in technicians? She opened her mouth to ask, but a hand fell on her shoulder and she wheeled about, seeing one of the younger technicians that Shia Hai had assigned to her. “Miss?” he asked, his accent slowly having improved over the weeks they had spent in pursuit of penetrating the ice.

“Yes?”

“We need to prepare for their retrieval.”

She nodded, her mind frantically assembling all the things that would need to be done, and dismissing the oddity…

* * *

Shia Hai followed behind the Joketsuzoku carefully, shivering at the nearness of all the ice… but the woman was creating a channel easily wide enough for two or three of Shia Hai to walk abreast, and not touch the sides. Quickly, too. Much more quickly than she had begun.

The People did not like plans that involved guesswork or gambling. And this was one such plan… They weren’t certain how it worked, only that it lay within the ice.

The woman before them stopped suddenly, staring forward, and lowering her weapon. Shia Hai peered over her shoulder, her camera serving as an excuse. But behind the wall of ice… there they were.

None of the attempts had gotten so close, before. Merely a meter left.

The woman whispered something softly, whimpering, and nodded, raising the weapon once more.

Shia Hai signaled her guards, preparing for the part of the plan that was nothing more than a gamble.

The flaxen-haired woman pressed forward again, causing the mass of ice overhead to groan and creak alarmingly. A fissure sprang up from the wall before them, deepening, climbing upwards with a shuddering series of snaps. The two halves of the structure, separated by the weapon in the her hands, fell apart slowly, stopping when the degree of separation was about ninety degrees, leaving it looking like a giant shell that had cracked open, revealing an egg-shaped core of ice inside.

And inside that ice, their _own_ weapon. Simply waiting for the woman to release it. She did so, tapping the ring against the top of the small egg-shaped icy sphere that contained the two bodies, and the small scythe-like implement beneath them. Blood had frozen in the egg, still flowing from the boy’s body, frozen mid-fall.

Shia Hai shuddered, and the ice cracked, shattering into a dozen large pieces. Two of them larger, containing the bodies. The woman sighed, hunching over and gathering her breath. Good, Shia Hai thought. That much easier to finish what they had intended to start.

She brushed past, gesturing towards the boy and his block of ice. A pair of guards approached, their powered body-armor allowing them to lift him, and hustle back towards the compound, where the technicians would take over the situation. The other pair of guards approached the girl, setting the shaped charges they had readied earlier.

The woman opened her mouth to say something, but Shia Hai silenced her, lunging for the scythe that had been freed and swinging it viciously behind her. For all of their vaunted prowess, the Joketsuzoku warrior had only enough time to blink, raising one arm to deflect the blow.

Perhaps, Shia Hai thought, relieved, she was trying to use the supposed ‘fey talents’ that they had heard about. Not that it mattered now. She smiled, dropping the scythe and clearing out of the blast site. One of the guards stopped to move the Joketsuzoku woman, encased in ice as she was. If Miss Tendo’s plan worked, then perhaps she could be used, too.

She thumbed her wrist communicator open, broadcasting on a public frequency. “This is Shia Hai, from the northern arm research facility. There’s been an accident—” Communications shut off with a squealing burst of static, as the explosives behind her detonated.

Shia Hai smiled, drawing a cigarette from the pack in her pocket and putting it to her lips, still unlit. The communications link opened up only a moment later. “Both of the Tendo Heavy ships that were sent to us were destroyed. We request backup,” she said, carefully speaking around the cigarette.

The guards nodded, the pair of them setting the frozen Amazon down, and jogging swiftly towards the parked ships. The Orion lay closest, and would be destroyed casually, the Tama, more carefully. They’d want the… thing… that piloted it alive.

* * *

Keitaro cracked his knuckles, shaking his head and watching the plume of smoke and fire that trailed from an RPC as it lanced through the chill air, striking the Orion like God’s fist. The Orion was not heavily armored enough to withstand the round, and the shell pierced it easily, detonating inside and sending the entirety of its engine, components, and everything else within to rain down around the wreckage in flames.

“Tendo’s not gonna be happy about this one,” he mumbled to himself.

The computer chirped a query at him.

“Tama, go from ‘standby’ to ‘low power’ mode. And open a channel to Qinghai.”

A chirp of negation sounded. “Figures.” He was silent for a moment, watching a small troupe of power-armored soldiers trudge towards him through the snow. “They probably have anti-air artillery hidden around here. They wouldn’t risk letting me get away…”

His head swiveled to scan a monitor, as it flashed suddenly, and the computer chirped again. He blinked, scanning to another monitor, locked on the excavation site.

And the frozen Amazon.

“Oh, shit. They just put themselves in the middle of two angry dragons.” He contemplated silently for a moment, debating his options.

First and foremost, he needed to protect the Tendo girl. That was the important part. Retrieving Ranma, in any form was the second task that he had been entrusted with. Not nearly as important as protecting the living, but still very important. Keeping Herb from committing an act of war was not on the list, but he was supposed to keep things level.

“Okay, Dad, looks like I’m going to be borrowing some of your power later, unless you think that the King of Cups can fix it.” A hollow pounding noise rang out from access hatch. “And quick, too…”

* * *

Ranko punched in the last of the data onto the terminal before her. “Okay,” she said nervously, unsettled by the explosions that had rocked the compound earlier. “This should work, though it’s probably going to take a few hours before it’s complete.”

The technician nodded, glancing over the control panels into the sealed room with the boy’s body, and a pair of doctors in heavy protective gear from the environment. Hermetically sealed suits. No air would reach them, and they could hopefully heal the wound across his chest before it was a major issue.

The doctors carefully lined up a thermal auto-bandage over the wound, though it wouldn’t be activated yet. Once it was aligned correctly, they nodded, and retreated through an airlock. When it was clear, Ranko thumbed a switch, flooding the room with a faintly glowing amber liquid. A pair of faint, slim paddles descended, coming to rest above Ranma’s body just short of the ice.

More instruments descended, an anchor for the bandage to keep it aligned, then a small array of wires that bit into the ice, glowing red and carving off the excess. “Okay,” Ranko said, realizing too late that she was repeating herself in her nervousness. “This should take care of it.”

The technician nodded. “I think I understand the process,” he said. “Well enough, anyway.”

Ranko turned to look at the man inquisitively, but he had backed up and was holding a pistol trained on her. “What are you doing?”

“Please step away from the machinery, Miss Tendo. We do not wish to damage it, and you do not wish to stop the revival of your uncle. If you cooperate, you will live.”

* * *

There was pain. Undeniable, unbelievable, and far too much of it.

It had been decades since he had _felt_ at all.

It was not the release he had been expecting at all. A sudden wash of something flowed across him, triggering the familiar change.

Maybe it _was_ pain, and maybe it _was_ the curse… but it felt _good_.

Her eyes yet refused to open, and she felt like her entire body was encased in some kind of jelly, and she distantly heard someone’s speech, reverberating and distorted.

“…that’s it. Does he know Mandarin?”

“Probably not. He shouldn’t understand us, and there’s no way that he can hear us in there anyway. Does it… wait a moment. Wasn’t that a guy a few minutes ago?”

“Ah, shit! I think we blew up the wrong one!”

Her eyes opened.

“Damage is regressing — control? Control? Where the hell is control!”

* * *

“Yeah,” Keitaro whispered, “we’re in trouble now.”

He ignored the poundings at the entry hatch to his craft, focusing on the instrumentation instead.

“Idiots.”


	7. Silent Onus: Unseen Tears of Heaven

* * *

#### [End]

* * *

“Great-granddaughter, it is not our way to give up. I can’t fault you for your loyalty, your bravery, or your tenacity…”

She turned eyes reddened and puffy from long nights of crying to the older woman wordlessly.

“I will, however, fault your idiocy. He was never yours to lose. Now pack your things, and let us be going.”

A voice, rusty from disuse, and unsteady from heartbreak asked, “Mama? Will… will Mama still love me?”

“If she doesn’t, I’ll have to beat sense into her. You didn’t lose. Now come, we have much to do, and there will never be enough time for it.”

“Yes… Yes, Great-grandmother.”

* * *

#### [Palace]

* * *

His eyes remained closed, his senses extended. A great and terrible bonfire of life force and power had been quenched suddenly.

The reasoning was unknown to him, but the flame was one he knew.

Ranma had been slain.

A servant scurried near him, and his senses prickled at the imposition of the other being’s aura. “Learn subtlety before you trespass upon this hall again,” he warned, eyes opening.

The servant swallowed uneasily, cat-like steps ringing too-loudly in his ears, where they fell silent to all else.

But then, the servant could not be blamed _too_ much. As finely as Herb had honed his senses, the man’s heartbeat was audible to him. “But worry about that later,” he said, changing his mind. “Fetch me ink and papers. There is a letter that must be written, and soon.”

The servant nodded, and scurried away.

“I sense change on the wind, and it is near.”

* * *

#### [Dusty Roads]

* * *

“Are you thirsty yet?” She wasn’t hopeless — merely wounded. Time would heal it.

The girl grunted wordlessly, shaking her head in negation. “I’m fine,” she said after a moment.

“Good. We’ll reach the village shortly after noon.”

Pausing, the girl made a face. “Something… something feels off about this.”

“Hmm? Well, something’s amiss, but I can’t tell what, yet. Just as well that we head back, now.”

“Great-grandmother?”

“Yes?”

The girl shivered suddenly, despite the heat of the low road. “I have a bad feeling about something.”

“Yadagradze Shan,” the older woman said, gesturing to a nearby mountain with her stick. “We’ll be home soon enough, and then we can investigate. And you can perform your duty to the tribe.” Which she felt no need to name.

* * *

#### [Letter: Greeting]

* * *

“What’s it say?”

“It’s about Ranma, your Highness.”

There was a moment of silence as the youthful emperor considered. “Ah? What of him? His friend returned the Kinjakan to us.” He paused, considering. “The Gekkaja is lost to us, for now.”

“Someone from the northern lands by the name of ‘Herb’ suggests that we need to ally ourselves to be strong enough to survive what comes next.”

Saffron frowned thoughtfully, unwelcome memories of former incarnations invading his mind. “What comes next?” he managed, bracing himself against the throne with both hands until the surge of memories passed. “Ah,” he said before he could be answered. “War. Yes. I see, now. The world changes, ever so much.”

“Ah… that… that is what he said, your Highness.”

“Yes, Kiima… draft a letter, then. We seldom had dealings with them after the N’dori and the Machin. Mmm. Yes, allying would be wise indeed…”

Kiima blinked, surprised, and gathered a quill pen. “As you will it, your Highness.”

* * *

#### [Summit]

* * *

“Pardon?” Saffron asked warily, his guards at his back.

“A summit,” Herb said again, glancing at Cologne and Shampoo, then back to Saffron and Kiima. “That’s what they call it when governments greet one another and attempt to work out their differences peacefully.”

Cologne hesitated a moment before speaking, then smiled slowly, and sank to a sitting position. “That’s not entirely correct,” she warned, “but it is apt enough. You’ve won my trust.”

Saffron snorted, shaking his head. “I am not most trusting your kind, Joketsuzoku though for Prince Herb, I will listen.” After a moment, he grumbled, gesturing to the springs behind him, “And this place is far from being a summit. It’s the lowest point in several miles.”

Snorting, Cologne turned to Herb again. “I trust you assembled us here for something important?”

“Yes,” Herb said, frowning pensively and sitting comfortably. Mint and Lime, sensing his intend, backed away and hunkered down. Cologne made a subtle gesture, and Shampoo and the other Joketsuzoku did the same.

The two turned to look at Saffron expectantly. He glowered, and nodded at Kiima.

She and the remainder of his guard also backed off, leaving the trio alone, though Saffron still refused to sit.

Herb smiled hopefully. “Perhaps,” he said, “we can stand united. However, change is in the wind. My kind seldom associate with anyone else outside of the interviews we conduct for brides…” he trailed off frowning.

“Recently,” he said, shaking his head, “we’ve seen more of the large armored vehicles that the Han military seem to like move about in the passes below our stronghold. Aside from that, there is a certain premonition of war… I trust I’m not the only one?”

Saffron stiffened, then nodded angrily, and sat. “I will agree to attend this summit,” he announced. “You have my ear.”

* * *

#### [Lost]

* * *

She wondered what day it was. It was easy, most days, to forget, to ignore, to move on…

But sometimes she was still haunted by what she had lost.

No, she told herself. Something that was never hers to lose anyway. But she would be hard-pressed to find anyone as… worthy as he was.

He was a dragon among men, and everyone else was simply… dross in comparison.

As she trained wordlessly, her mind cast back to the events of… how long ago? She couldn’t remember when, simply that it had happened.

Her great-grandmother smirked, watching in silence. Her duty was a heavy one, but it would be borne nobly.

* * *

#### [Mistrust]

* * *

“You are ever welcome within the halls of our mountain, Prince Herb.”

Herb nodded respectfully to Saffron. “Thank you, Emperor Saffron. What cause bids you to summon me so urgently?”

Saffron snapped his fingers, and gestured. Kiima’s guards dragged the unconscious form of a man in uniform into the room from a side hall. Kiima explained, while Saffron brooded silently, “This man was looking for us. Many others were with him, but under the cover of night, we brought him here and questioned him.”

Herb crossed his arms over his chest, nodding. “I see,” he said gravely. “What do you suggest we do?”

Kiima bit her lip pensively. “It is a difficult situation to manage,” she said slowly, “but we simply do not know as much about the outsiders as the Joketsuzoku do.”

“So you think we should ask the Joketsuzoku what they think? I see no problem with that.”

Saffron snapped out suddenly, “I do not trust them! They are… too base. We, and you, we’re removed from the rest of… humanity? I do not know the word I seek for. But there is a difference between we and they, and it is too pronounced, I think, for us to work together.”

Herb blinked in surprise. “I understand what you mean with the differences. At least, I think I do. And some of them _are_ like us. I trust them, Emperor Saffron. What can I do to extend trust between you and they? Cologne of the Joketsuzoku trusts you. Many others have faith in an alliance.”

Saffron frowned pensively, then said slowly, “They would not act against you, no… perhaps if you were to take a hostage?”

“What?” Herb was stunned. This did not bode well for an alliance.

“Yes,” he nodded decisively, while Kiima’s guards led the prone soldier away. “You will ask them for a hostage. I trust you, and they trust you. If you hold something they value, they will not risk moving against us.” He glanced at Kiima. “Kiima, draft a letter to the Joketsuzoku outlining my request. Merely as a measure of trust.”

“Ah… as you wish, Emperor Saffron,” Kiima said doubtfully.

* * *

#### [Letter: Request]

* * *

Cologne pondered the letter before her.

“A hostage,” she murmured, thinking. “They want us to send someone to a theoretically neutral area as a sign of trust.”

“Feh,” another elder spat. “‘They’. Saffron, you mean. He’s too petty. Why does he trust the Musk, and not us?”

“That is not known,” another said. “But it is the truth. I’ll admit, I’ve no great love of the Musk myself, and would trust the Phoenix people more. Save Saffron, I suppose.”

“Well,” yet another said, “it’s foolishness anyway. We could easily send someone who had no value to us, and satisfy the word of his request, without the spirit.”

“And yet,” warned Cologne, “I think that’s what they expect. We need to send someone we value, to show that they can trust us, and that we are willing to trust them.”

“But we aren’t willing to trust one of our own with the Musk,” the second complained.

“I think we have to, if this is to work. I hear rumors that the PRC is preparing for a war, but we still don’t know against who, yet,” the third stated.

The fourth spoke again, “War. I’ve heard that the United States of America has started to war already. I can sense a taint in the winds that hasn’t reached our lands since they attacked Japan with nuclear missiles.”

“That,” Cologne grumbles, “merely proves that we must concede to his demands, if for no other reason to prepare ourselves. The world outside us is changing, and we’ll need to be unified to survive. For this, I propose that we send my great-granddaughter to them.” She sighed. “It’s a heavy duty, but she is strong.

Silence reigned as the other three elders studied Cologne in surprise.

“I agree,” the second elder said hesitantly. “If you are willing to risk someone that important to you, then the needs must be urgent.”

“I am not pleased, but I agree as well,” intoned the third.

“Just as well. I’ll draw up a letter,” the fourth completed.

And in one voice, “So be it.”

* * *

#### [Welcoming]

* * *

“Um…”

She was demure. Calm. Beautiful, even.

“I would like to begin…”

And strong, stronger than any woman he had set eyes on before — save possibly his own cursed form.

“… with an apology…”

And had enough skill to back that strength, most impressively.

“… for my servants behavior…”

And apparently wasn’t afraid to use it.

“… but, they’re not really used to seeing…”

And there was no question that she liked fighting.

“… so much skin. Or women at all. Really.”

“It’s okay,” she said tiredly. “I’ll live.”

“Um.”

* * *

#### [Letter: Small Talk]

* * *

Dear Great-grandmother,

I should be able to visit you soon, but am very busy. The Musk are very strange people, but I’ve learned a little bit about fighting from them.

They seem to focus more on the esoteric arts than we do, but it’s been educational.

I miss sparring with my spear-sisters, since the Musk are either far stronger than is safe to challenge, or far too stupid to bother fighting with.

Herb is an interesting person. He reminds me of Ranma, sometimes.

Most of the time, he’s just his own special kind of stupid, though. He got very upset when he walked in on me bathing.

I have to go now.

With much love,

Shan Pu

* * *

#### [Aftermath]

* * *

Cologne surveyed the ruins of the Musk palace, smoke rising from the remains of thousand year old buildings. Stone walls had been destroyed by stray mortar fire, ancient statues were now little more than scattered rubble.

A pair of the largest warriors pulled massive blocks of granite off of the crushed remains of the Musk library, retrieving whatever precious scrolls had survived. Saffron stood near her warily, his normal unhappy frown changed an outright grimace.

Kiima’s eyes remained fixed on the heavens, where the rising smoke joined with the now eternally gray skies. “It would seem,” Cologne remarked to the woman, “that it _has_ come to touch us. Someone should go out and see why.”

Saffron frowned at her mistrustfully. “How do you propose we go about that?” he asked skeptically.

“I know that you don’t trust us,” Cologne said, “but there is something we have in common. You respected Ranma, yes?”

“Yes,” Saffron said slowly. “I did. Why?”

“He has family, and friends. Kiima knows where they are. In these skies, it should be possible for her and a few others to reach Japan safely, and tell us what’s happened. Those who knew Ranma should be willing to at least tell us what’s going on.”

Kiima’s wings rustled uncertainly, and she glanced at Saffron for approval. He hesitated only a moment before nodding. “Go,” he said. “Return as quickly as you can, mask your presence with ravens.” Kiima nodded, but before she could take off, Saffron gestured to the guards he had brought with him. “Take them with you, and return in _safety_ , Kiima.”

Cologne raised an eyebrow, as the Phoenix people winged upward, leaving Saffron alone.

He eyed her unhappily. “I can learn,” he said. “Even though it hurts. Ranma changed more than just Jusendo when we battled. More than just the mountain, too.”

Cackling, the Joketsuzoku woman said, “He’s changed us all, hasn’t he?”

“He and Herb, yes.”

They both turned to look at Herb, male in the slight rain that began to sprinkle down. Male because despite his outward calm, his anger was intense enough to make his aura visible even to the eyes of the untrained, lambent sheets of ki flame roiling off him in waves, evaporating the water before it could strike him.

“Indeed.”

* * *

#### [Foundlings]

* * *

“We are not beggars to take of any charity that is offered,” he said stiffly.

She responded quickly, “Then you are idiots, Herb. You can stay with us, or you can stay with the Phoenix. Perhaps you can divide your forces and stay in both places. We simply don’t have the _time_ to allow you to build a new home.”

“Saffron will not be pleased,” he warned.

She paused, considering, “I doubt he would. Perhaps we can all build a mutual stronghold. Saffron resents that your library might be added to ours, yes?”

“Mostly, yes. The combined lore would be great. You have the leavings of the Machin, and we the N’dori.”

“Then I have a proposal for you.”

“What’s that?”

She smiled, nodding knowingly, “We would simply combine our libraries at a mutually beneficial location. Store all three of them as a library for all of us. A gesture of trust. Then we can move our defenseless — the untrained men, the children, the healers — to Phoenix Mountain. We will all share our knowledge, and all benefit. Only by working together can we survive.”

“Your people will never stand for it,” he warned.

“There is one way they can be convinced,” she said thoughtfully.

“How is that?”

“If you accept our library as a dowry…”

* * *

#### [Letter: Invitation]

* * *

Nabiki eyed the envelope thoughtfully.

Her schedule was hectic, and there was a lot that needed to be juggled around. And China hadn’t been a safe place to visit by any stretch for a long while.

But friends were friends…

She frowned thoughtfully. “I wish I could attend,” she murmured.

“Nabiki? Is something wrong?”

“We were invited to a wedding, Dear.”

“Really? Who?”

“Shan Pu and… Uh… ‘Herb’ apparently.”

“Where?”

She sighed, setting the letter back down. “I wish I could go,” she said. “But it’s too dangerous, and who would take care of Ranko?”

“Invite them to visit us sometime, then.”

* * *

#### [Sanctuary]

* * *

“Um…”

She regarded him frankly, eyeing him up and down. “What?”

“I’ll… I’ll sleep on the bed,” he declared. “I’ll have some extra blankets brought for you so that you can sleep on the floor.”

Her eyes turned to the cold, hard, stone floor, then the warm, soft bed. Narrowing, they turned to Herb. “I’ll fight you for it. Winner gets the bed.”

“Um…”

“Let’s go!” with that, she launched a strike at his throat, which he blocked more out of reflex than intent.

When the battle was over, both warriors sunk to the floor, exhausted. “I can’t go all out without hurting you,” Herb panted, “or I would have won!”

“You’re a very stupid man,” Shampoo assured him. “You would lose to me anyway.”

“If you weren’t my wife, I’d have you beaten for that.”

“If you weren’t the prince of the Musk, I’d show you where _your_ place was!”

“Um…”

“Yes?”

“Um…”

“What? What? What is this infuriating ‘Um…’ for?”

“Who gets the bed? We tied.”

“Um…”

* * *

#### [Beginning]

* * *

Perhaps, she thought, she was mistaken. Perhaps Herb was nothing like Ranma at all.

But many of the qualities she had loved in him, Herb carried. And many she loved, he did not. And even things more she never thought she would like at all, she loved in him.

“You’re an arrogant fool,” she whispered lovingly.

He jerked his head about to look at her, surprised. “What?” he asked, frowning.

“Nothing, Herb. Merely that I believe that even though I did not when I asked you for marriage, I now realize I’ve come to be quite fond of you.”

“Oh?” He smirked, an unusual expression for him, and straightened his robes about him subconsciously. “I suppose someone of my stature is hard to resist.”

She giggled, pecking him on the cheek, and breathing softly on his neck, “Tell me, does the sight of my skin still make you angry?”

He swallowed, eyes widening. “What are you talking about, woman?” he asked uncertainly.

“Your confidence seems to have faded, Airen,” she teased.

“Don’t call me that,” he whined, backing into a corner, as Shampoo winked, and undid the ties on the front of her silk shirt.

“Airen,” she teased one final time, silencing his further complaints with a firm, yet gentle kiss.


	8. Act IV: Flesh and Blood

Safely ensconced within his skimmer, Keitaro removed his pipe from his pocket, and a moment later, his father’s card. “Sorry, Dad,” he whispered. “I know you hate it when your kids ask you for help.”

He rose from his chair and moved to the large steel door that he could hear the guards pounding on. When their armor proved too weak to batter down the steel that the Musk had mined, smelted, refined, and then given to the Tendo clan to forge, they would resort to a pneumatic ram.

Placing the card against the reverberating door, he tapped it once with his pipe, pleased at the small glow that suffused it, sealing it to the door. And more importantly, sealing the door from the outside.

He studied the image on the card, the sign of infinity, and a genially smiling man completely aware of the precipice he pranced upon. He smirked, ignoring the other images — the animal following the figure, the flower in his hand. “Thanks, Dad.”

Retreating from the door to the bridge of his skimmer again, he eyed the monitors and telltales. “Heavy, heavy, heavy…” he sighed, as he plotted how to retrieve her without aggravating an already dire situation. “Gotta figure this one out,” he muttered. “There’s a way.”

* * *

Hands bound before her, she sat in the empty supply closet, alone. She had tested the bonds briefly, but given up.

The soldiers who had bound her knew what they were doing, and her own foray into martial arts had been decidedly brief. She was the farthest thing from a warrior she had ever known of. Hands trembling, she raised them to her collar, asking in a quavering voice, “Keitaro?” Her voice caught, and she coughed. “Keitaro?” she asked again more clearly, fumbling for the communications pin. “Are you there?”

His voice answered three heartbeats later, tinny and small through the miniscule communications device, “I hear ya. What’s wrong?”

She tried to calm herself. “I’m scared, Keitaro. They tied me up and locked me in a closet. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Never should ‘ave trusted them,” he remarked sadly. “I’ma gon’ have ta track ya down. Can you sing, Ranko?”

She stared at the slim light of light that shone underneath the door, frowning. Not ‘Miss Tendo’, but ‘Ranko’. Stifling a hysterical giggle, she asked, “What should I sing?”

“Do you know ‘Sweet Blue Days’?”

This time she did giggle, failing against her panic, but quickly stopped herself. “Yes, my mother loved it. Why do you want me to sing?”

“To track you down,” he replied, annoyance staining his voice. “The bunker’s pretty thick, and stops most of the Tama’s sensors dead — added to the guards I got pounding the beat on my door already… Oh, never mind. I’ll do it,” he grumbled. She blinked. That song was a duet…

Keitaro’s voice, strong and resonant, began calling softly through her communication pin. Drawing herself out of her stupor, and pressing the button to lock the communication link open, she picked up from the second verse, singing along with him.

His voice assured her, as he left her to sing alone, “That’s good. Keep it up.”

* * *

The liquid surrounding her rippled, shimmered, and fell before her will. The gelatinous substance began to thicken, stiffen, then shrink, dissolving into a bluish powder.

A calm, collected corner of her mind noted and filed that information away, as she sat up, still clad in her torn Chinese clothing. The wound on her chest had sealed itself, now little more than a scar and a memory. The more present part of her mind seethed icily, and she extended a hand towards the glass barrier between her and the sniveling, cowardly men before her.

The glass compacted, shimmered, and finally shattered, as a thin layer of ice swept out from around her feet, enveloping everything.

“Vengeance,” she whispered, staring at the small islands of safety around the two men, clinging to one another like frightened children. “Vengeance.”

* * *

Their relationship, he knew, was hardly traditional. It was something that had begun out of necessity, and evolved from that.

What it had turned into, however, was something very real, and worth more to him than all of the steel his people could mine for their allies. More than his heritage.

And so much more — oh so much more — than their lives.

Ki-flame became true flame in the blink of an eye, bathing and pouring from his body like molten hate itself.

They would pay.

* * *

Shia Hai stood at the remains of the icy spire, now a rudely bisected pile of icy chunks. The serrated edges gleamed in the light, and she drew her goggles down to protect her eyes. Tactical displays and updates scrolled by slowly, and she thumbed them off, trusting her aides to notify her if there was a problem.

The compound was still and quiet below her. Her earplug carried the faint murmuring of technicians as the operation proceeded. A faint message came across the link as the power-armored soldiers admitted their inability to penetrate the hull of the… unclean thing’s vehicle.

She left the command to her second and switched off all but the most important channels. Whipping her shoulder-length hair about wildly, a stiff wind rose. Her gear protected her from the cold, much bulkier survival and thermal protection than Miss Tendo had worn. Miss Tendo’s flagrant preference to comfort and fashion fell short in Shia Hai’s own perception, however.

The Tendo girl’s clothing might have protected her from the cold, but it wouldn’t stop bullets. Her clothing, of course, would stop conventional ballistics, and was tested to block out the majority of the rads in a blast. Surviving the blast was a risky proposition at best, but it would allow her to weather the fallout and live to serve the People another day.

Sighing audibly, she stepped through the single channel that cut completely through the icy ruins that had only a day previously been an impenetrable fortress. It galled her that the key to the puzzle had been a… Joketsuzoku warrior… instead of a product of the People’s own hard work.

It galled her too that they were attempting to harness something they didn’t completely understand, but that wasn’t her concern. She was simply a liaison, and since the retrieval process for their weapon of choice was complete, there was no need for her. A message came across the communications link, informing her that Miss Tendo had been placed in protective custody.

“Thank you,” she said, activating the return link. “Continue.”

Her own command could override any present, but there was no need to. Nor was there a need for her to manage anything else personally. The People’s Army was a finely oiled machine.

She smiled grimly, ignoring the squeal of static as she stepped to the center of the icy hills.

Seven large pieces, and numerous small ones. Perhaps… perhaps she could be thawed out of the chunks of ice that encapsulated her remains. Shia Hai sighed, sitting on a larger block. “I never got to know you that well,” she mused. “But I feel you’ve been a part of my life.”

Falling silent, she allowed her eyes to drift across the circular depression. A fine, solid spray of red coated the entire area. What the shaped charges hadn’t turned to ash, they had melted, only to be refrozen into smaller pieces. “Ironic, since the culmination of my life was the absolute destruction of yours,” she mused.

The faint breeze picked up again, prompting her to raise her scarf over her mouth. She chuckled wryly, climbing to her feet and staring down on the remains below her. “Spiteful?” she asked. “It’s too late now. Nothing can be done… no power can revive you now, and if it can, this entire area will be molten glass at this time tomorrow.”

She leaned forward, gathering the pair of discarded weapons. She’d just as soon not have to touch them with her own hands, but they were too dangerous to leave lying about. “You, my pretties,” she addressed them as she held one in each hand, “should have been destroyed.”

Dropping them behind her, she fished a cigarette out of her pocket and lowered her scarf. The wind had stopped for the moment, and she intended to enjoy one last minute with Akane. The part of her life that would be gone, shortly. She eyed the iron ring dubiously, lighting a safety match and inhaling sharply.

The acrid smoke poured into her lungs, and she sighed, blowing towards the crater. “You know it’s not personal,” she said. “It’s just a control thing. We probably can’t control you. Hell, I’m not convinced we can manage Ranma.”

She laughed bitterly, tapping the ash from her cigarette behind her respectfully, rather than on the remains of the one she addressed as a comrade. “Damned fools. I’d just as soon keep my hands free of the affair. No ‘magic’, no… Just the People. I just want the People to be strong.” A grimace crossed her face, and she puffed silently for a minute before saying, “Like I say, it’s not personal.”

And, chillingly, the squealing static on her communicator shattered, a faint voice saying, “I forgive you…”

Shia Hai bolted upright, dropping her cigarette. “Who said that?” she snapped out, on edge from the voice.

The answer came, “… but I don’t know if he can.”

And then there was silence.

Shia Hai tapped on her communications links, stunned to find them all dead. The mountain chose that moment to jump, knocking her to the ground unceremoniously to land roughly on her backside as clouds of black smoke and white fire shot upwards from around the icy monument’s remains.

* * *

Anger. It overpowered every other aspect of his being, burning through him to sear his very senses away into a white-hot miasma of fury.

He threw his arms wide, vaguely aware of the liquefied steel and seared flesh that spattered freely about him, the pristine white surface of the mountain beneath him boiling into steam, not pausing for a moment to flow as a liquid.

Great white clouds billowed about him, and still, he pulled on the wellspring of energy inside him, pouring his all into the rage.

And on it flowed.

* * *

Wrath. She remained calm, composed.

A fleeing technician froze literally, flesh becoming ice, and then colder, breaking down into cold component parts. She nearly smiled. Nearly.

More cold. She focused herself and her being tighter, attempting to perfect the focus. Steel walls shattered about her, engines and electronics reduced to coldly smoking ruins.

But one place resisted her perfection.

Summoned, she turned her attention to the small island of resistance.

* * *

Voice trembling, choking back tears of fear and worry, the girl quavered uncertainly, trailing off when the walls of the closet about her shattered, exploding away like tissue rent by an angry titan.

Before her, in a loose, relaxed stance, still clad in her Chinese clothing — old Chinese, not modern — stood a form she recognized clinically as Ranma.

But the blazing red hair, shimmering and iridescent with ice, blue eyes, colder than the deepest chill she had even known, and an expression that spoke of a complete lack of emotion reminded her of nothing more than Shiva, or perhaps Charon. The red-haired goddess of death reached towards her, the cold about her hands so intense that the very air was reduced to liquid — and was halted by a sparkling flash of amber and gold.

And she spoke, calm, composed, dulcet tones, “Who are you?”

Finding her voice only after Keitaro’s epithet in her ear cured her dumbness, she said, “I’m… Tendo Ranko.”

Impossibly cerulean eyes blinked twice in confusion, and much of the cold about the redhead seemed to dissipate. “Indeed?” Those same blue eyes narrowed to slits, and the cold resumed, intensified. “And you are responsible for what was done to Akane?”

“Never!” Ranko managed, backpedaling frantically, falling backwards. “I… I always wanted to meet my uncle and aunt! I never wanted anyone to get hurt! I’m sorry!”

Her eyes screwed shut, and all was silent, though in the distance she could hear yells and the sounds of a great fire. A heartbeat later, and her own breathing sounded, Keitaro having fallen silent. A hand grasped her wrist, and she was hauled unceremoniously to her feet. Her wrist bindings shattered, falling to the floor below.

The girl standing near her suddenly seemed to be very human, and smiled grimly. “Okay, I’m real sorry about that. Let’s go…” the softness leaked out of the girl as she drew her hand back, becoming cold again. “Go to Akane.”

Ranko nodded numbly, seeing the wreckage of the compound. Meter thick steel bulkheads, reduced to icy splinters of metal, living quarters — everything. Including the multi-billion yen equipment that was needed to restore the frozen to life. She followed behind Ranma gingerly as the redhead stalked forward.

Somehow, she couldn’t regret the loss. Machines could be replaced later, and if they were kept out of the hands of people who would abuse their power, so much the better. “Tell me,” Ranma’s voice said stiffly, “how did you stop me?”

Ranko shook her head, admitting, “I’m not sure. Keitaro asked me to sing… I think he wove a spell.”

“Something like that,” the man muttered across the communications link.

Ranma nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer, and strode from the remains of the compound into the fiery bowels of hell itself.

* * *

Heaving for breath, Keitaro placed his pipe in a pocket with a trembling hand. Protecting Ranko from that kind of power wasn’t easy, even with his father’s help. “Sorry, Dad, it’s gonna get a whole lot uglier, too.”

Straightening, he staggered to the doorway. The power-armored guards had bigger and more dangerous things to worry about at the moment. He retrieved the pipe from his pocket and knocked it once against the tarot card on the door. Its amber glow faded, and it dropped from the door to land in his outstretched hands.

“Tama,” he said suddenly, addressing the ship’s computer.

It chirped a simple query at him.

“Are they still jamming communications, or can we reach Qinghai yet?”

The computer chirped negation.

Keitaro grunted, and returned to watching the telltales. “Figured as much,” he muttered sourly. “Not like they’ll miss this anyway.”

* * *

Ranko staggered back, raising an arm to shield herself from the flames as they erupted from the ground nearby, cleansing the earth of snow in a mere instant. But the fires did not touch her, balked by the same glow of amber and gold that had shielded her from Ranma before Ranma had calmed.

Cocking her head to one side, as though considering, Ranma smiled. “So,” she said softly. “Herb.”

Ranko stepped back worriedly, hovering on the line between the baked earth, and the shattered and frozen steel.

Ranma stood in the midst of the ground, either not minding or not aware of the flames. “Where did this all come from?” Ranko asked anxiously.

“Herb,” Ranma said simply. “He is in pain, angry.” Ranma’s arms spread, rising above her head. The fires near her snuffed out immediately, steam turning back to ice and falling upon the ground to shatter with gentle bell-like noises. The snow from behind the compound flowed upward, surging like a great wave preparing to overbear the girl.

Ranko swallowed nervously, feeling very small in a battle between giants. The smoke and fires died down, revealing a stretch of blasted and baked ground between the compound and the monument that had only recently housed Ranma and Akane. An island of snow protected from the heat and the fires neatly ringing the structure.

And in the center, a man robed in heat, a column of white and yellow flames rising about him. The pillar of fire billowed upwards and out, a dragon of flame coiled protectively above the man. He leaned forward, and as he did, so too did the dragon of fire, hissing and spitting angrily at an APC as it limped across the snow in the distance.

The APC fired vainly, steel shells liquefying before they reached him as Herb lashed out again, streams of fire hot and angry enough to rival the sun its brightness and severity flying true to lick for only a moment across the steel frame. The vehicle halted suddenly, and shuddered once in the manner of a dying beast before collapsing into a steaming puddle of molten ore.

Ranko’s tongue stuck to her mouth and she staggered away, fearful. The man’s eyes lit upon her and flickered only briefly, but the mere glance left her breathless and mortally afraid.

Where Ranma had been calmly collected and clinically efficient, Herb was a wildfire, uncontrolled and unrestrained. Ranko stumbled back until Keitaro’s voice reached her suddenly, and she realized he had been yelling to her for some time. “… damn it, girl! STOP! You’re gonna back into the goddamned dragon! Get a grip on yourself! I can’t move without drawin’ Herb’s attention, and my father’s not going to protect either of us from that!”

“Okay,” Ranko said, eyeing the dragon of flames as it stepped forward, one molten and flowing claw slamming heavily into the earth. “Where should I go?” she asked, afraid.

“Left. Away from the APC. Towards the Tama. Don’ get too close yet— the guards nearby’re still runnin’ aroun’ in power armor.”

Ranko paused, still following the line of scorched Earth and frozen steel. She turned to look behind her slowly, alarmed. Above Ranma, like an obscenely beautiful mockery of perfection, a gleaming and crystalline Dragon of ice hunkered, watching Herb’s own fiery companion, considering. A mammoth tail twitched, and Ranko fell down wincing as the sound barrier cracked over her head.

Herb reared his head back and yelled for all he was worth, the coruscating waves of flame thickened from a steady rush to an outright blast, the searing heat making Ranko flinch even from over a hundred meters away. Ranma cast a glance towards her, frowning, but her attention returned to Herb as his shout ended, the fiery manifestation before him stepping forward once more in challenge to Ranma’s own.

Ranma’s lips quirked in a strange smile as the creature above him flowed forwards, body of ice, but moving like a rushing torrent of water. Herb’s power was so blatantly obvious, and Ranma’s so frighteningly subtle. They were likely perfectly matched in every respect.

Ranko quivered, body tense with worry, and scrambled to her feet. “Wait!” she shouted. “You can’t fight! We can’t fight! Not here! It’s not safe!”

The two gargantuan creatures and their respective masters turned to look at her, Herb with a confounded anger, Ranma with a calculating curiosity.

She swallowed nervously, as Keitaro chastised her, “You done got yourself killed, girl. I was startin’ to like ya, too.”

Herb stalked forward a step, then paused, and Ranma nodded knowingly, banishing her servant of ice and power into a fine icy mist. “It is as she speaks,” Ranma said sedately. “You must calm yourself before it is too late.”

With effort, the man did so. The serpentine leviathan above him puffed out, leaving only smoke and memory to tell of its passage, a thin drift of snow already hiding the evidence of his wrath. Ranko could still see the bubbling puddles of steel that had once been vehicles, though the Tama was out of sight — behind a low rise. Herb growled, his voice too deep and rough, sounding as though he _were_ the dragon, not a man, “I will listen. I will heed your words, Ranma, but know that my anger will be satisfied!”

Ranma nodded, brushing past Herb to approach the single crystal spire containing the flaxen-haired Joketsuzoku woman in front of the wreckage that had been his own tomb. Herb bristled, and Ranko rushed to catch up to the pair. She was shocked — so carefully had Herb concealed it behind the hulking form of the Dragon of flames. And so well protected, it had not even melted in the slightest.

Ranko licked her lips worriedly as she came to a halt. Ranma studied the woman, frowning. Herb simply clenched his fists and fumed, his body too hot to approach as closely as he would have liked. Ranko stared into the crystal enclosing the woman, eyes wide in surprise and betrayal. What had she missed? How had she come to be frozen so?

“I think that I can… if we can take her to Japan, and keep her frozen, my father has a lab—” She cut off suddenly, as Ranma raised a hand to silence her.

“No,” she said calmly. “This can be fixed easily. Herb, you overreact. Thaw her quickly — she knows the Soul of Ice.”

Herb’s eyes flew wide, and he transformed instantly from enraged warrior to shocked little boy. Ranko shook her head, too confused and unbalanced by the day’s events to be further amazed. As Herb’s hand came into trembling contact with the crystal of ice, it melted, not slowly, but suddenly, the entire structure rippling once and then falling away like jelly.

The man caught her, sinking to his — suddenly her knees. Herb was cursed just like Ranma, and in the cold… She grimaced and gave off a sudden wave of heat, leaving the moisture in her clothes to warm suddenly before steaming away.

Kneeling where he was, the woman across his knees held tenderly to his chest, he rocked back slowly. “You’re okay?” he asked worriedly.

The woman stirred slowly, sleepily, and shivered. Ranko shook her head. She’d raised the dead and watched Dragons fight. This was merely another impossible thing to add to the list. “Airen… you’re warm tonight…”

And before Ranko, staring in confusion, and Ranma who was neither smiling nor frowning, Herb, onetime Prince of the Musk, current Chairman of the Council of the Qinghai Confederacy, wept. As if magic, when his tears struck the woman in his arms, she changed; her glamour dissolved. Flaxen locks gave way to violet strands, as eyes and face shifted from a faintly Nordic woman of the ice to a woman Ranko remembered from her own childhood.

“Shan-Pu,” Ranma intoned gravely. “We meet again.”

* * *

Ensconced within the icy tomb of Ranma’s desecrated lover, Shia Hai backed away from the narrow entrance. More of a defile than anything else, she realized sardonically.

“How appropriate,” she muttered, pulling her scarf across the lower half of her face and dashing back to the center. She slid to a halt, crampons in her shoes biting into the ice and arresting her before she could stumble into the still-untouched bowl of ice that contained what was left of Akane.

Hands trembling, she gathered the two staffs from the ground. If anything could stop what she had seen, it would be those weapons.

The breeze about her picked up, and her communicator spoke once more, “… that’s not the way,” before falling dead silent.

Biting off a curse, she flipped on the tactical displays for her goggles, only to find them dead.

* * *

Ranko watched curiously, as the woman rose to her feet, standing proudly, while Herb fretted over her, layers of heat washing off of him in tangible waves. “I am well,” she said stiffly, unable to meet Ranma’s calm, cool gaze. “It is… good to see you again.”

Ranma nodded wordlessly, and reached a hand towards Shan-Pu in friendship. “The circumstances are strange,” she allowed.

Tentatively, as though she was afraid of being bitten, the woman extended a hand to meet Ranma’s. The redhead took her hand and smiled warmly, the ice and cold once again fading. “If only we could have met under friendlier skies,” Shan-Pu said.

Ranma nodded, drawing back her hand and retreating into her icy shell again. “Time grows short,” she said, turning away from the pair and staring towards the memorial that held Akane. Ranko swallowed nervously, wondering how thorough Shia Hai’s men had been. Perhaps… perhaps it wasn’t too late.

If nothing else, she could hold hope. She followed behind Ranma worriedly, marveling for a moment that a woman — or any being at all — could be so short and yet have such a profound _presence_.

Ranko remained silent, glancing behind to see Shan-Pu and Herb both following nearly at her heels. Herb studied her, and nodded in approval, before looking away.

His wife offered Ranko a friendly smile, dashing forward a few steps and catching up with the girl. “Ranko,” she began, slowing as she drew near. “You are very brave… and very smart. We’re both sorry that you’ve had to get involved in this, but—”

“ _Stop_ right there!” a voice cried out, interrupting the woman.

Shan-Pu dropped into a tight, ready stance, protectively gliding in front of Ranko. Only a few meters ahead, Ranma stood, at her coldest and calmest yet. Shia Hai stood at the end of the defile, a handgun shaking in her grip.

Ranma merely raised an eyebrow, and Shia Hai threw the gun down, tugging the kinjakan from her belt. “What are you doing?” the redhead asked blandly, her voice completely lacking inflection.

Herb growled, less moving and more flowing to Ranma’s side, the nearby ice melting at his passage, and reforming as he stopped, both of them staring past Shia Hai to the crater behind her. Shia Hai twitched nervously, holding the kinjakan before her like a talisman to ward off the pair. “I can’t let you come any closer, I don’t know what you’re planning, but this… this place is dangerous. It’s too dangerous to let you bring her back! She has no control…” the woman trailed off lamely as Ranma and Herb exchanged an almost bemused glance.

“I… I’m… It’s my job to stop you,” she protested weakly. “I can’t let you risk reviving the Ice-Wraith.”

Ranma actually smiled, not a friendly, amused smile, but the mechanical smile of one whom is merely being polite in their chosen duty. “Move,” Ranma whispered, one hand slowly rising to tap Shia Hai’s chest gently. A point of purest blue leapt from her finger, like a spark, and the kinjakan whined fiercely, growing warm too late as Ranma drew her hand back.

The bluish spark fizzled for a moment, and Shia Hai stared dumbly at her chest. Heavy-duty thermal gear cracked sharply, and Herb casually stepped forward, landing a single brutal kick to the woman’s chest. She flew backwards, slamming into an icy spire as the front of her armor fell away like dried autumn leaves, striking the ice below and crumbling into frigid dust.

“Hmm,” Ranma mused aloud. “You saved her life.”

Herb sneered at the woman, pinned against a column of fallen ice, her protection gone. “She attempted to hurt my _wife_ , Ranma. She did _that_ to your lover,” he growled, pointing. “Death is too good for her. Eternity in the summerlands, tended by my people. And it will not be the kindest tending.” He concluded by spitting, being careful to not desecrate the tomb below.

“We will let _her_ decide,” Ranma said, crouching at the lip of the crater and peering downward. “She is still here, in spirit. Her form survives in broken pieces.”

The tall man’s fire faded, as he peered into the crater to look. “What are you speaking of?” he asked, confused.

“The spark is extinguished. I can repair the shell, perhaps… but I cannot replace that vital spark.” Ranma’s eyes narrowed, and he asked Herb, “Do you know where such a spark could come from?”

The man hedged, nodding. “Indeed, though it would only hold for a month, perhaps more… but not longer.”

Ranma smiled, and Ranko’s heart caught. Judging by the way that Shan-Pu grabbed her wrist, the woman was also caught by the beauty of the moment. “Then let us work.”

* * *

The computer chirped loudly, jerking Keitaro out of his meditative trance. The communications link had been shut down when Ranko entered the monument — he wasn’t about to impinge on the reunion that would be going on in there.

His father had never known them personally — any of them. But that didn’t lower Keitaro’s respect any. Family was family.

He thumbed the engines online, watching the last of the guards stagger away. The display indicated numerous vehicles flying away, all of them quickly. It was the kind of thing that Keitaro recognized instantly, and took only a moment for him to take into account.

“They’ve had about an hour, I hope that’s long enough to say goodbye!”

Grabbing the steering yoke firmly, he stomped on the accelerator, making the skimmer jump nearly twenty meters into the air before he kicked the levs online, cruising downwards at an angle to skim across the snowy ridge sheltering the Tama from the compound. Between the compound and the monument lay a vast swath of smoking Earth, slowly being snowed over.

“More idiots,” he muttered, eyeing his navigational charts. The Tama spun sharply, skidding to a halt a half-meter over the thin layer of snow before thumping heavily to rest near the passage into the monument.

He left the engines running as he opened the hatch, not bothering with his cold-weather gear. He wasn’t planning on being away from the ship long. “Yo!” he yelled, backpedaling as he nearly slammed into a well-built woman, shielding Ranko from him. “Boss-man! We got incoming. Unless you think you can do Saffy’s little, ‘nuclear fire don’t hurt me none!’ trick, I highly recommend that we relocate our asses about fourteen miles ta the north, and fast.”

“I’m busy,” a voice answered quietly, leaving Keitaro to blink.

“Uh, right.” He turned to look at the woman before him. “Oh, heya, Boss-lady. Anything we can do to speed things up?”

Shan-Pu quirked her lips in a smile. “You’re a very special kind of idiot, aren’t you, Keitaro?”

He grinned, flashing his father’s card at her. “Yeah, the best. I hear that I take after my dad.”

Behind the Amazon, Ranko stared, jaw agape. “You’re a spy?” she asked, confused and hurt.

“Oh, yeah, well, ya know how it goes. Jus’ a little.” He pocketed the card absently, spinning his pipe from the same pocket to clench it in his teeth.

Shan-Pu cleared her throat loudly, shooting Keitaro a reprimanding glance. “Agent Koara is one of our best.”

He nodded absently, glancing over his shoulder. “Thanks for the ego-boost, Boss-lady, but we still got an incoming somethin’ that’s making everythin’ the Tama can see head for high-groun’, if ya know what I mean?”

The woman nodded in understanding. “I see. Tendo, you’re well advised to get aboard the Tama and wait with Koara there. If Herb and Ranma cannot finish what they’re doing here in time…” She hesitated, grimacing. Waving a finger at Keitaro in warning, she bounded away, bouncing upward, and returned a half-moment later, the chilled and shivering form of Shia Hai in her hands. “Take this with you, too. We’d like to retrieve the kinjakan and gekkaja.”

Making a face, Keitaro tossed the prone woman over one shoulder, and trudged towards the Tama. “Miss Tendo,” he called back over his shoulder. “I’d like if’n you could help me get ready.”

She followed hesitantly, as Keitaro tossed the woman carelessly into one of the empty crew compartments. He disarmed her, taking the gekkaja and the kinjakan and stowing them in the front cabin. Sealing the main hatch for the moment, he took a quick inventory of the ships vitals.

“Too much weight,” he said sadly.

Ranko shook herself out of a daze, and turned to look at Keitaro. “What do you mean?” she asked, confused.

He pointed towards the door furthest to the rear of the skimmer. “Too much cargo, if we wanna get faster, we should lose the heavy stuff.”

Nodding in understanding, Ranko dashed to the cargo section of the craft. Keitaro watched her go, and shook his head, trailing after her. There was a good chance they wouldn’t be getting home at all, if the dragons couldn’t hurry. “Well, Dad, you’ve helped me out so far, maybe just one more time for the day? I promise I’ll talk to Mom…”

Ranko looked back from sliding a crate towards the rear hatch of the Tama curiously. “Keitaro?”

“Nothin’,” he assured her, opening the ramp, and rolling the crate into the snow. “Jus’ thinkin’ about my mom.”

The girl nodded, wincing as millions of dollars of fragile equipment crashed to the ground below the craft. “What was your mother like?” she asked, moving on to the next crate.

“Oh,” Keitaro sighed, helping Ranko move the heavier box, “I dunno. Excitable. Really in love with my father. Kinda tragic, that.”

“Why is that?”

“Oh, well…” He paused, grunting to raise the crate over the lip of the ramp, and sending it tumbling to the snow below. “Eh… that’s kinda hard to explain. Maybe some other time. My mom was special, though.”

Ranko nodded in understanding, sliding yet another crate forward, this one lighter than the last. “You mean she was fey?”

“Heh, well,” Keitaro shoved the box after the last, grimacing. “Anyway, Mom was special ‘cause she was fey ‘fore the Fall. Long before.” He paused, eyeing Ranko frankly. “She’s a mess some days, pining over Dad, afraid to go outside because people’ll stop believin’ in her…”

The girl shivered. “That can’t… happen, can it?”

“Don’t think so,” he said, shrugging. “We can live in cities, and I ain’t never seen or heard of it happening, so… I dunno. I think really she’s just sayin’ that’s the reason, and it’s Dad that makes her sad, but either way…” he trailed off, shoving another crate off the craft. “Either way,” he resumed, “I want to see Ranma back safe, an’ then maybe we can look for the other dragons.”

“What happens then?”

“Well,” Keitaro temporized, frowning, “best as I can figure, we get to be real. Without just being theory, or ‘delusion’. You ever get tired of growin’ up, and people telling you that medicine can fix ‘thinking you can do things that are obviously not possible within the realm of physics’? ‘Cause I did. I got real tired, and… when people don’t believe, it stings.”

Ranko nodded slowly, awed. The girl had forgotten to aid in the removal of the boxes, but Keitaro couldn’t fault her, and preferred to keep his own hands busy while he talked.

“Anyway,” he continued, “Mom was real nice about the entire thing, and real supportive, but sometimes — and I love her dearly, don’ get me wrong — she could be a real brat.” He shook his head, tipping one last crate over the ramp. “Anyway, I could always do some stuff when I was little, and learned more as I got older. Mom, she used machines, me, I started using the pipe when people started looking funny, and when I bought her, the Tama.”

The computer chirped at him, and Keitaro snorted. Ranko stifled a giggle, hitting the button to close the rear hatch as Keitaro jogged amidships.

The side hatch opened at Keitaro’s touch, and he ran past Ranko, brushing against her in the narrow corridor. “Oops,” he allowed. “I’m gonna get to pilotin’, close the door when everyone’s in.”

The girl yelped something as he squeezed past, and mumbled something that sounded like a confirmation.

* * *

The ball of contradictions wrapped in confusion and topped with an accent that was sometimes there, and sometimes not slid smoothly against her, and then beyond, dashing towards the pilot’s compartment. She shook herself out of her stupor, and stepped into an alcove, monitoring the four that passed her. Not thinking about things, and only aware of the Tama’s rumbling engines lifting it upwards, she slammed her palm against the emergency seal, which in turn slammed the hatch shut with a jarring finality.

Not taking any more time, she gestured vaguely towards a side-compartment and dashed past the small crowd in the larger corridor to take a seat next to Keitaro. He was seated in the pilot’s seat, wrestling with a sudden wind. “Things’r gettin’ nasty,” he muttered, as Ranko belted himself into the seat next to him and called up the tactical relays.

It only took a moment to tie the Tama’s sensors into the private satellite she had monitoring the situation. Keitaro glanced at her sharply, but she only offered him a placating smile before turning back to her frantic typing at the terminal before her. A fifty-two character code was transmitted upwards, and the satellite above came to life, sensors and communications gear activating to provide Ranko with all the information she could possibly need.

Using the connection to link to Tendo Heavy’s mainframe, she directed a few simple queries to the main computer before focusing her attention to the extended tactical information that the satellite offered. She frowned, linking it into the Tama’s own readings, granting Keitaro’s sensor suite the benefit of Tendo Heavy’s most advanced satellite.

And there, about three hundred kilometers away, but closing quickly, was whatever NR Xinjiang had chosen to fire at them. “Oh kami,” she breathed, as the computer chirped at the mainframe’s analysis of the object. “It’s a nuke…”

Silence filled the cabin after her announcement. She looked worriedly over her shoulder to see that Herb, Ranma, and Shan-Pu had all straped themselves in. The three looked at her, Herb in fury, Shan Pu with a face pale and drawn of blood, and Ranma with a maddeningly calm coldness.

“What can be done?” she asked after a second, prompting Herb and Shan-Pu to look at her.

“Well,” Keitaro said, pointing to a spot on the map, “we can set down here, and pray. The Tama ain’t gonna carry us clear of that unless it’s a dud. You got a good idea?”

“Pray?” Ranko asked unhappily. “I thought you were full of good ideas and clever plans to escape.”

“Just my Dad’s luck, and his help when he’s willing,” the man muttered sourly.

“Can he help us now?” Ranko pleaded.

He frowned, glancing at her. “I can ask,” he said uncertainly. “But I don’t know…”

“It is worth attempting, if no other plans will save us.” Ranma straightened suddenly, maintaining her balance despite the turbulence. Cold demeanor melting again, she asked, “And, uh, can I get some hot water?”

Ranko actually snickered for a moment, before reminding herself of the loss that Ranma must have faced. “Yes,” she said, remotely notifying the mainframe to keep the technical data updated. “It’ll take a minute,” she warned, crossing the floor by the aid of handrails, and working her way towards the galley.

The galley sat just behind the command deck, and Ranma followed her into the chamber. A small kitchenette was built into one wall, and another contained a snug fitting breakfast nook. Ranma took a seat in the nook, glancing about the small collection of posters curiously.

A great many of them featured artifacts from what Ranko had always assumed was Koara’s homeland, though that was obviously not the case, since he had been raised in Japan. ‘Out’ was simply his way of stating that even if he was from nearby in a geographic sense, he bore little true relation to his neighbors.

Ranko silently padded over to the coffee machine, surprised to find the pitcher already full. She eyed it hesitantly, then added some cold water to the mix before handing it to Ranma. The redhead nodded her thanks, and poured the jug over her head.

Ranko could barely restrain her excitement. It may have been a mundane pleasure, but she dearly wanted to meet her uncle in his proper form. She watched raptly, as red hair became black, the swell of a bosom became a fine and well-muscled chest, curved hips shifted, become more masculine, so that in the space of less than a heartbeat, her uncle was once more male.

He set the pitcher down, just in time to catch Ranko barreling into him. “Uncle Ranma!” she called out, sobbing. “Finally! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry about Auntie Akane!”

Ranma awkwardly patted the girl on the back comfortingly. “Don’t, ah, worry. She’s sleeping now, but she should be fine once we get her to Jusenkyou.”

Ranko broke away from her uncle, mouth hanging open in shock. “Are you serious?” she asked slowly, not able to believe his words.

He nodded, as the girl took a seat across the table from him. “How?” she asked, confused.

Speaking slowly, he looked away from her, studying his own hand intently. Not meeting her gaze, he spoke softly, his voice oddly resonant, “Our bodies are mostly water. I can rearrange that, a little.” He sighed, shaking his head. “There was not enough of her left for me to put back in her own shape, so I used what was at hand.”

“What?” Ranko didn’t understand. Had he rebuilt Akane, somehow?

“I recreated her physical form using my own as a map. We need to take her to Jusenkyou. There’s a cursed pool there with the image of her true form. If we can take her there, then the risk of her spirit burning out will destroyed.”

Ranko absorbed that slowly. “Wow,” she managed, unsure of what else she could say.

The boy across from her merely nodded, running his hand through his hair. “So,” he managed, tearing his eyes away from the table, and looking about the cabin again. “How long has it been?”

Ranko giggled, shaking her head. “I guess there’s a lot of catching up to do, huh? You’ve been asleep for more than twenty years…”

* * *

Keitaro set the skimmer down in the shadow of a rocky shelf, scant protection that it would be able to provide. Flurries of snow outside were flung upwards as the craft came to rest uneasily, gyros and stabilizers emerging to hold it steady.

“Okay,” he announced over the intercom. “We’re here, and about six miles away from impact. And, uh, three minutes.” He stood, turning to face Herb and Shan Pu in dismay. “We coulda gone faster, but the damn NR Xinjiang guards beat up on the Tama’s propulsion. We’re just plain not gonna make it, sorry.”

Herb shook his head, standing and releasing his wife’s hand as he did so. “We won’t give up,” he announced.

Another voice joined his from the doorway, smooth and calm, but obviously male. “No, we won’t. Tell me, who are you?”

Keitaro felt an unmistakable shiver ascend from his heels, climbing his legs to rise up his spine on its way towards his scalp. Before it could end, he stepped forward, between Herb and Shan Pu, and dropped to one knee, head bowed. “Beggin’ your pardon, Boss-man, Boss-lady, but like I tol’ you and Saffy, my loyalties are to this guy.”

A bemused laugh echoed across the room. “You still haven’t told me your name yet.”

Keitaro fumbled at his pocket, and produced his father’s card. “My name is Keitaro Koara, and I be the Fool for the King o’ Cups.” Ranma accepted the card, and a moment later reached down to lift Keitaro back to his feet.

“That’s nice. Now how can you help us stop what’s about to destroy us?”

Hedging nervously, Keitaro admitted, “Myself, I got the ability, ya see, but I don’t have the power yet. Dad says it comes after a while, but, uh… I don’t got what he says I need to get that power yet.”

Herb crossed his arms over his chest. “And Ranma gets a fool,” he grumbled. “You’re a fool indeed, if you cannot think to ask your master for power.”

Keitaro felt his face redden. “Uh, oh yeah, I knew that. I was jus’ testin’ ya.” Coughing, he turned away. “So, uh, if you hang onto my father’s card, an’ gimmie your power, we can try an’ stop it.” His voice carried far more confidence than he felt.

“Good enough,” Ranma said suddenly. “Can we get on top of this before it starts? Shan-Pu, please watch over Ranko and Akane. Herb…” he trailed off, raising an eyebrow.

Herb nodded, smirking. “Why not,” he said cockily. “I’ve anger to burn.”

Nervous, Keitaro motioned to the access hatch, and then began climbing the ladder. “Here’s to hoping,” he said, a quaver in his voice betraying him.

Ranma chuckled, ascending the ladder behind Keitaro, and Herb smirked at them both, rising to stand atop the Tama without using the ladder. Snorting, the King of Cups motioned Keitaro to prepare.

He did so, drawing his pipe from his pocket, and spinning it experimentally across his fingers. “Here goes nothin’, and a whole buttload of it,” he muttered.

Ranma laughed genially, placing a hand on Keitaro’s left shoulder, as the man held the pipe before him, bowl pointed away, stem facing east. Herb placed his hand on Keitaro’s right shoulder.

“In the name of my father,” Keitaro said unsteadily, before halting suddenly. That wouldn’t work.

He cleared his throat loudly, seeing a glittering, sparkling point of light break through the heavens, streaking downwards to the south. “In the name of the King of Cups,” he intoned, feeling the bidden power course through him, from Ranma, and again from Herb, though more weakly. “I seal this site, here and now!”

Gold and amber, blue and red, chains of light erupted outward from the bowl, cracking it, then setting it alight in a wash of primal color and energy. The colors bled through the pipe, sundering it, leaving only dust, and the light coming from Keitaro’s hands, and himself.

The chains wrapped around a nothingness, spinning into a disk twice the size of the Tama, and then twice that, a wall of power between themselves and the nuclear strike. Runes, his father’s symbol, flared to life on the disk, bathing the entire area in a saturated… safe… light.

Ranma’s grip never faltered, nor did Herb’s, until there was a flash of light, and then… nothing.

* * *

She woke with a start.

Moonlight, a mirror, cloth in the window rippling softly, and the music of a faint flute.

Her eyes found her hands, wrapped in bandages, already loose and falling away. Lower, a soft-furred blanket, and beneath that, a thick cotton shift protecting her body from the cold.

The room was warm, and a sharp crackling noise alerted her to a fire behind her, low and dying, but the coals still glowing.

Her hands rose, almost of their own accord, and tugged her bandages off. Swinging her feet over the floor, she was pleased to notice a thick fur rug protecting her from the chill stone of the floor.

Slowly, details began to filter in as the door opened, and a boy stepped through, bearing a candle and a tray, laden down with things that smelled pleasant. Her mouth watered, but she resisted the urge to simply chase after the food, managing to ask, “Who are you?”

The boy smiled, setting the tray on a small bedside table, and taking a seat in a wicker and bamboo chair. “Well,” he said, shaking his head, “that’s a long story. They call me the King of Cups, here, and an ally to the Qinghai Confederacy. My name is Saotome Ranma.”

One particular detail clicked into place, as the rest sluggishly followed. “I love you,” she informed him, still not touching the tray, loaded down as it was in a soup-bowl, and whole loaf of bread.

His smile widened at hearing that. “It makes me more happy than you can ever know, that you tell me that,” he said, wiping away a stray tear. “I’ve died and come back from the dead for you, and brought you back from the brink itself.”

She tackled him, less aware of moving, and more aware of lying atop him on the fur rug. She was keenly aware of the contact between them, more than anything else. “Yes,” she said, her nose nearly touching his, her breath warm against his face, as his was warm against hers. “I love you more than anything, love you enough to come back, afterwards.”

He said nothing immediately, merely staring into her eyes joyously. “You remember, then?”

“My name is Akane Tendo, and you’re my fiancee,” she said flatly. “What more do I need to know?”

“Your curse?” he said worriedly.

That brought her up short, and she stood, staring down at him in confusion. He rolled to his feet and snapped his fingers, pointing towards the mirror in the room. “I’ll get some hot and cold water for you,” he whispered.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Everything was as it should have been, as far as she could tell. “Being dead for years can probably throw a girl’s perception off,” she mused, more and more memories returning as the moments passed.

Ranma returned a few heartbeats later, bearing a bucket and a kettle. He set both on the floor, as Akane watched him expectantly. “Now,” he explained in a lecturing tone, “I did the best I could with what I had to work with. So you’re in your cursed form at the moment. We, ah, we can lock it for you later, if you’d like. Um…” he trailed off, handing her the hot water kettle apologetically.

She doused herself without hesitation, curious to see what would happen, and dropped the kettle in surprise as her fingers suddenly shifted proportion and she lost a few centimeters of height. She stared at her reflection in the mirror in bemusement. “I’m you!” she exclaimed. “I’ve got your curse… Why?”

“Ah, I’m really sorry… I just did the best I could with what I had to work with,” he apologized worriedly.

She stared at herself in the mirror, her reflection so familiar, and at the same time, oddly alien. “I can live with this,” she said, smirking. “If this is the worst of it — you always said that this was the body you preferred anyway.”

His further protests were silenced by an exuberant kiss.

* * *

Atop the library that the union of the Joketsuzoku and Musk tribes had forged, Keitaro Koara leaned against the central stone spire, playing his flute softly. He let the last few notes trail off, eyeing the stone guest cottages that sat to one side, set off pleasantly by the deceptively friendly glow of moonlight off of Jusenkyou’s springs.

At his side, Herb and Saffron both gazed up at the stars, richer and brighter in the lands of Qinghai Confederacy, thanks in theory to the lessened light pollution. “You’ve done well,” Saffron remarked, his feathers rustling slightly in a faint breeze.

Herb nodded, and added, “Indeed. For a time, I thought all was lost.”

Keitaro flushed nervously, twirling the flute in the manner of his favored pipe. “It wasn’ me,” he admitted. “I jus’ gave it structure. Ranma and Herb did it, not me.”

“Good enough,” Saffron mumbled. “It pleases me to see that no harm has fallen you, or Ranma.” He paused, considering, and added, “That you protected Miss Tendo speaks well of you, but…”

Herb picked up where Saffron trailed off, “You did promise that you would serve me, Keitaro. And I can forgive you for choosing to serve Ranma, but it does not please me.”

“Hey,” Keitaro grumbled, “no one’s perfect. I thought I was supposed ta follow you, but when Ranma talked in the Tama, that tol’ me that he was the one I hadda follow.”

Herb nodded, still gazing at the stars. “Understandable,” he allowed. “I had grown used to having an ally as useful as yourself. Perhaps it is merely bitterness speaking.”

Saffron nodded, rising to his feet and stretching his wings out. “Indeed,” he mumbled. “It is not supremely important, but the arrival of the King of Cups bodes well.”

Turning jovial once more, Keitaro grinned, commenting, “And boy am I glad _that’s_ over!”

Saffron laughed, folding his wings in, and shaking his head. “Not over, young one, not yet. There are still two pillars out there, and then there’s the matter of Shia Hai.”


	9. Act V: Song of the Void

* * *

#### [Earth]

* * *

He had never considered himself a man of deep thought, and outside of combat and martial arts, he felt that his mind was slow about many things. But of late, something had nagged at him, pulling at stray thoughts and worrying at them in the manner of a young, untrained puppy.

His eyes narrowed and his head bowed slightly, allowing him to study the grill before him. His wife was gone at the moment, and the day was slow. Slow enough that he could stare at the grill and lose himself in thought, should the fancy strike him.

But he didn’t really know what to think of. He supposed that it meant he was bored. But he wasn’t much given to daydreaming, either. What need did he have for daydreams? He found his life of simple work and simpler pleasures enough.

A hobby, he decided. He needed a hobby.

He frowned at that thought. Aside from martial arts, all he truly did with his free time was tell stories to his children. They seemed to enjoy his tales, as did his wife. Yet…

Eyes growing distant for a moment, he allowed his senses to drift, casting about him through the earth, stone, and concrete that lay beneath and around him. His wife was safe; he could feel her presence a mile and more distant, walking with… with Nabiki. Of course. Headed to school to pick up their children.

He sighed, shrugging his shoulders uncomfortably as a pensive spike of apprehension crawled across his spine.

* * *

#### [Wind]

* * *

He imagined that his lack of confinement within mental rigid structures was the product of the knowledge that was bestowed upon him. Spinning over the lake, he gestured, massive gusts and eddies of wind slashing effortlessly through the waves, an ethereal dragon of cloud and mist parting the waters and uncovering the creature below the waves.

A thing of light and shadow — structure frail and empty. “You do not exist,” he remarked.

The creature — the Orochi — writhed weakly, fading through the talons of the Dragon that hovered behind him as he floated, melting into an ethereal mist.

“Hmm,” he mused, watching as the massive creature faded to nothing. “Unacceptable. This will need to be changed.”

Whirling once more, his Dragon faded to nothing, and he folded his arms at his side, soaring high and away. Far, far to the west, towards the Gate of Death, the resting place of the sun, he sensed his brothers. Two of them. But closer, so much closer… another.

“Yes,” he said softly, smiling. “As I am the most elevated, you will be the most base. Earth.”

* * *

#### [Fire]

* * *

He lay on the bed, staring at the stone ceiling above him. He felt oddly pensive, though he knew well enough that he was happiest waking the way he had. His wife remained asleep — drained from the ordeals of the last few days, and contented to rest for the moment.

Tired, he knew in a clinical sense, because the journey so far from Qinghai, amid lands where his own kind were persecuted and killed, drained her. Content because his presence restored her.

His lips curved upward in a smile, and he was unable to resist the impulse to push his wife’s hair out of her eyes, brushing it gently back, and mussing it in the process. “Nnng,” she noised, screwing her eyes shut and pressing her face into his chest.

She squirmed about for a moment before waking, sitting up slowly and yawning. He propped himself up on one elbow and studied her as she yawned, clad as she was in a thick flannel shift. Done, she squinted at him blearily and mumbled, “Morning, Airen.”

Smiling, he sat up, nodding to her. “Are you well rested?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said fingers absently raking through her hair and setting it back to some semblance of order. Cocking her head to one side suddenly, she asked, “Do you think I would look better with blonde hair?”

His face betrayed his confusion as he shook his head, answering, “I like you best as you. Why?”

She giggled, leaning forward to plant a kiss on his lips before pulling away, eyes glittering with subdued joy. “I’m going to take a bath,” she announced. “Then we will have breakfast with Ranma and Akane.”

“Of course,” he warned quietly, “no other woman could tell a dragon what to do.”

“Then I suppose I’ll have to teach Akane,” she mused, grabbing a robe as she headed towards the door and shot him a sly wink.

* * *

#### [Visitor From on High]

* * *

Ukyou stopped, three steps short of the corner that would allow her to be seen by her children from the school. “Nabiki?” she asked quietly, turning to regard the woman. “You’ve been very quiet, and you don’t usually just visit with me to watch me pick up my children. You have a flitter, after all. What’s troubling you?”

The other woman winced, looking away. She heaved an uncomfortable sigh and said, “Of course you’d be the one to see through me. Ukyou… It’s about Ranko.”

Which, as Ukyou knew, would mean it was about Ranma too. “Oh?” she asked worriedly. She’d harbored both hopes _and_ fears about the project, as little as she understood it.

“Um…” Nabiki turned around, her expression dogged and worried. “Ukyou,” she said plainly, “Ranko hasn’t been heard from in a while, and, well… Have you heard what happened in Xinjiang recently?”

Ukyou struggled to remember, feeling vaguely embarrassed that she hadn’t paid closer attention. “I’m afraid not,” she admitted.

“They said that it was an accident,” Nabiki murmured. “But nuclear missiles aren’t accidents.”

“Oh,” Ukyou said in a quiet voice. “Was it at around… six o’clock, three days ago?”

Nabiki whipped her head around to stare at Ukyou and narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?” she asked apprehensively.

“Ryu-chan got really sick then,” she said blandly. “I can tell you what time it is, or how long something takes — down to a second, if I have to. Ryu-chan can sense when things touch the Earth. We all have our powers.”

“Oh,” Nabiki said in a small voice. “Of course. You’re fey. Just like Tofu-chan.”

“Ranko, Nabiki?” Ukyou reminded the woman. “My children lose their patience in about eight minutes, and start to walk home on their own.”

Nabiki sighed, shaking her head. “I think Ranko may be dead,” she said in a quiet voice. “I… Tofu-chan says not to give up hope, but if they did that… Ranma couldn’t stop that. Ranma and Akane… and Ranko…” Heaving an unsteady breath, she whimpered, “I should never have let her go!”

Ukyou winced, regretting the harshness she had addressed Nabiki with. “Nabiki…” she said quietly. “I… I don’t… Don’t give up hope. Not yet. Maybe she couldn’t save Ranma and Akane….” Something about that struck her false, though she couldn’t put a finger one what — or why. “Ranko might still be okay.”

Opening her mouth to reply, Nabiki looked up sharply, staring in shock as a figure shot through the space over their heads, easily passing above the nearby buildings, then streaked sharply downward. Both women ran full bore around the corner towards the school building.

Nabiki skidded to a halt, eyes wide as Ukyou pulled the massive spatula that the woman could have _sworn_ Ukyou had left at home from over her shoulder, charging towards her children determinedly. Both Makoto and Tomoko stared, Tomoko hiding behind Makoto, and Makoto holding her hands up as though she intended to fend off the man before them.

The man that was floating a good half-meter above the ground, suffused with a faint nimbus of glowing white light. The light wavered and rippled, and so too did the air about him. Ukyou yelled something incoherent, swinging the spatula down over in a hard, overhand arc. The man cocked his head to one side, deflecting the attack in an errant manner with one hand.

Makoto yelped and jumped back as Ukyou circled around the man, standing before her daughters protectively. “Who are you?” she demanded.

He straightened up, folding his arms over his chest. “How remarkable,” he mused. “Base he would be, assuredly, but enough so to have children? Remarkable.”

Ukyou growled, eyes flickering briefly to Nabiki, then back to the man. Stubbornly, she warned, “My husband can be here in… in… in two minutes and three seconds, if someone calls him right now.”

“Is that so?” the man asked, shooting a glance at Nabiki so laden with contempt that she dropped the communicator she had retrieved at Ukyou’s words. “He can be here even sooner, I think.” Smiling sardonically, he unfolded his arms, reaching a hand towards the children. Makoto and Tomoko backed away at Ukyou’s gesture, retreating into the schoolyard. As his gesture, a violent whirlwind erupted around him, wind biting into the ground at his feet and spiraling upward, traced out only by stray dust and leaves.

His arms slowly rose, and the column of wind about him increased its speed, whirling over his head and into the sky. Nabiki felt an impulse she couldn’t quite identify, and took three steps to her left, feet moving nearly of their own accord. The giant column of air slowly curved, then vanished, one heartbeat there, and the next, gone.

Above the man, mammoth wings beating slowly, nearly lazily in the air, a monstrous dragon of smoke and mist hovered, head swinging low to pass the man, and sniff at Ukyou, tail lashing. The lashing tower struck a power relay, and Nabiki shielded her eyes from the trail of sparks as the tower collapsed, crashing into the ground only two steps to her right.

Rearing back, the dragon made a soft, quiet noise, and suddenly lunged its head towards Ukyou where she stood defiantly.

* * *

#### [Brothers]

* * *

“Aoyama?” Keitaro asked dumbly. “What the hell’r you doin’ here?”

Ranko cocked her head to one side, heels kicking absently at the rim of the stone fountain as she sat on its lip. Keitaro had been relating some other mission he had been on, though she hadn’t been paying much attention to the details as much as she was watching him, and thusly neither of them noticed a man of about Keitaro’s own age approach.

The man bore a strong resemblance to Keitaro, too, though his dress was entirely different. He wore the standard garb of a swordsman in a long passed age, and too, a blade was at his side. The grace he carried himself with warned that he more than likely knew how to use the sword, too. He smiled, inclining his head to Keitaro. “Koara,” he returned levelly. “I come on my own business.”

“Dad told you to seek your destiny?” Keitaro asked, narrowing his eyes slightly. “Said you had to pick a college or find someone to serve, eh?”

Aoyama’s expression shifted to mild annoyance. “Close enough,” he mumbled. “Mother said that I needed to make something of myself.”

“You failed the entrance exam,” Keitaro returned bluntly. “Didn’t ya?”

“Ahem,” Aoyama pronounced, not meeting Keitaro’s eyes. “One failure, to your three.”

“Hey!” Keitaro protested. “I made somethin’ o’ myself. And you would’a failed as much as I did, if ya didn’t spend all those years tryin’ ‘to find yourself’.”

“Do we have to settle this with a duel, Koara?”

Keitaro glanced behind him to where the Tama was resting, engine casings removed so he could work on it, then back to Aoyama. “The Tama’s kinda not in shape for a duel, ya know.”

Ranko shook her head, trying to understand what was going on. “Wait,” she protested. “You’d fight him with the skimmer? He’s only got a sword!”

“Yeah,” Keitaro returned blithely, “and she’s too damaged. Don’ wan her to get messed up worse fightin’ Aoyama.”

“I see you’ve learned a healthy respect for my skill,” Aoyama remarked, pleased.

Continuing as though he hadn’t heard Aoyama, Keitaro explained to Ranko, “I might dent the hull on ‘is skull, or somethin’.”

Aoyama bristled for a moment, then grinned, shaking his head. “It’s been too long,” he said, throwing his arms apart.

Keitaro chuckled and embraced the man. “Good ta see you too, bro,” he said, pounding Aoyama on the back.

Ranko relaxed slightly. If it was merely two brothers joking around… “Keitaro?” she asked quietly, as the men broke apart, grinning at each other — with the exact same vacuous grin.

“Yeah?” he responded, turning to Ranko, as Aoyama looked at her expectantly.

“If he’s your brother, why does he call you by your last name?” she inquired quietly. Not exactly a polite question, but she noticed that Keitaro generally didn’t care much for a lot of civility anyway.

“Oh,” Keitaro answered slowly. “Well… that’s… uh, he’s only my half-brother, see… I don’t got any brothers, just a bunch of half-brothers….”

Aoyama gave a pained sigh, looking away. “… And our mothers all named us ‘Keitaro’,” he finished quietly.

Ranko boggled at that, then asked, “How many of you?”

“Uh… lessee… there’s me, Aoyama here, Konno, Otohime, and Maehara.”

She winced. “Five brothers named Keitaro? That must have been really confusing when you were children, growing up together.”

“Er…” Aoyama began, coughing. “We didn’t… um… grow up together.”

“Dad is the wandering type,” Keitaro Koara advised. “You’ll prolly wanna call me ‘Koara’ ‘til this lug gets out of here.”

“Which reminds me, Konno is here too,” Aoyama noted.

“Oh, great,” Koara grumbled. “Watch your fingers if you shake his hand,” he warned Ranko. “And after you watch them, count them to make sure they’re all still there!”

* * *

#### [Sanctity of Blood]

* * *

Makoto wanted to cower, to run away and flee, but Tomoko wasn’t very good at running — her little sister fell down too much. And she didn’t want to abandon her mom, especially with the strange man being there and acting so funny.

But then the man summoned wind and scared her, and her mom started getting nervous. She didn’t usually, but Makoto could recognize the telltale warnings that spoke of her mother’s temper. The spatula in her hands trembled slightly, but she refused to stand down.

Which meant that her mom was fixedly defending her. The man’s summoned wind gave way to a dragon, and Makoto yelped as it lunged, moving to strike her mother. Acting completely out of reflex, not remembering her parent’s admonishments and warnings that she never misuse her powers, she lashed out, yelling, “Spirits of Earth and Cloud, heed my Call!” The words, as they always did, came from somewhere under her heart, not from her own mind. With that same familiarity, though strangely brighter then it had ever been before, a bolt of lightning surged from her fingertips, searing through the air, and passing only a hairsbreadth from her mother. But she knew well enough to not let the power strike her mother, and it arced smoothly around the woman, slamming into the gaping maw of the smoky Dragon, and passing through that to wreath the man behind the dragon in writhing bands of electricity.

The dragon froze, pulling back to look at the man in consternation. For his part, the man seemed dubiously impressed, though he made a single gesture with his hand and the writhing force leapt from him to strike the ground. “Some small hint of your father’s heritage?” he queried. “No matter. Call your father, Child.” The Dragon reared its head back, smoky eyes suffusing blue as it regarded her maliciously, preparing to strike again.

Makoto’s mother muttered something vile, and raised her spatula menacingly. “Don’t you _dare_ threaten my children!” she warned.

“No?” the man asked, frowning. “Perhaps, then, it should begin with you. Where is Earth?”

“Daddy!” Tomoko shrieked, bawling loudly as the pressure of the situation grew too much. “Daddy! Come help us!”

“Foolish mortals,” the man grumbled, another of his errant hand gestures sending a torrent of power towards them. The dragon reared its head back, and lunged again, unerringly aimed towards Tomoko — though Makoto stood steadfast in her path, and her mother flung herself to interpose herself as well —

But the dragon’s lunge was met with a fierce uppercut from her father.

The dragon reeled, the force of the blow knocking its head back, straining the creature’s long, slender neck. The strange man hissed, raising one hand to his temple, then growled as the dragon recovered, eyeing him warily. “Ah,” the man grumped. “You arrive. Let us be quit of this place — our brothers and we have much work to do.”

Ryu spat, shifting his stance, and shook his head. “No way in hell,” he said flatly. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, and I don’t really care — you are not going to get away with threatening my family.”

Makoto sagged with relief, only having a moment before her mother pushed her backwards, giving her father room. “Daddy!” Tomoko squealed joyfully. “Daddy!”

“Yeah,” Ryu grunted. “I’m here,” he continued, not looking back. “Now who the hell are you and what do you want?”

“Base indeed,” the man spat. “I am the King of Staves, as you are the King of Coins. Of course, you’re probably still so slow you don’t even know what you are.”

“Uh… I ain’t a king that I know about,” Ryu countered, eyeing the Dragon uneasily.

“Quaint,” the man remarked. “But far, far, far from useful. What do you call yourself, King of Coins?”

“Kuonji Ryu,” he answered warily.

“Ryu… Dragon… How… fitting,” the man remarked, grinning. “And there, we have our brother, the King of Cups, bearing… but it is of no import now. We must find them and complete our predecessor’s task.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you talk crazy?” Ryu grumbled, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. All I know is that you threatened my family, and I’m going to beat you within an inch of your life for it.”

“But you can’t,” the man notified him. “And you know it. There’s a gap between us, as there should be.”

“Shut up!” Makoto’s mother yelled, stepping forward. “Ryu-chan, kick his ass!”

“He can’t,” the man sighed. “Are you all daft? It is natural for me to be above you, for I contain the wisdom of Shen-Lung, but isn’t this a bit… much?”

“Ryu-chan! Why are you just standing there.”

Makoto’s father growled, then turned his attention to his hands, fascinated by them for the moment. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I… I can’t do anything. I keep… I try and move to hit him, but I can’t! It’s like my body won’t listen to me!”

“Not without proper cause,” the man noted drolly. “Observe.” With that, he streaked from his position in the air, descending on Ukyou like a streak of lightning, while the dragon behind him moved in tandem, sailing towards Makoto and her sister.

Makoto grabbed Tomoko and flung herself on top of her younger sister, intending to shield her with her own body if she had to. She wouldn’t let the crazy man hurt her little sister!

And yet, her precautions were unneeded. The man’s strike was halted, his extended fist caught in her father’s hand, as he stared at it in fascination. He had not moved to intercept the strike; he had simply stopped being in one place, and immediately started being in another. And the dragon too was held in check, the entire body of mist and smoke being rebuffed entirely by a massive plate of stone that had risen from nowhere at the last possible moment, looming over Makoto and Tomoko protectively.

Makoto’s father’s eyes tracked from the hand that clenched the strange man’s fist, while Makoto’s mother turned to stare at Makoto and Tomoko in confusion. Nearly the entirety of the abandoned schoolyard was filled with the bulk of another monstrous creature, this one made of earth, stone, and bits of metal. Its eyes gleamed like polished onyx, as it stared firmly at the other dragon, one gargantuan wing extended to cover Makoto and her sister, guarding them as through they were the dragon’s horde.

“That… that…” Makoto’s father stuttered, his hand falling limp, and releasing the other man’s hand as he stared at the massive dragon of Earth. “That’s… that’s mine.”

“Not yours,” the man corrected him, drawing back and massaging his hand as his dragon withdrew, vanishing into a cloud of mist and smoke, then nothing. “It is _you_.”

“I…” Makoto’s father looked distant for a long moment, then shook his head. “I remember,” he warned, “but don’t think for a heartbeat that I’ll ever forgive you for what you’ve done! I don’t care what your plan is—”

“No!” the man shouted, gesturing at Makoto’s father urgently. A fierce wind blew, literally tearing the words from Makoto’s father’s mouth. “Anything you say will be binding by Oath, Kuonji Ryu, King of Coins, and Pillar of Earth,” he advised. At Ryu’s glower, he continued, “We must go and bring Summer to these lands. If we do not, your blood kin,” he paused to nod at Makoto and Tomoko, “will lose themselves, and fade. And your chosen… mate… will, as well. We cannot live in Spring forever, with the hints of Winter nipping at our lives, and the existence of magic.” Done with his speech, the wind whipping about Makoto’s father suddenly stopped.

Nodding grudgingly, he said, “I know… I know… I remember now.” He fumed silently for a moment, glancing Makoto’s mother, who was speechless still, her spatula hanging limply from her fingers. “Why the hell did you attack my family?” he yelled. “Why are you such a sadistic bastard?”

“I am no such thing,” the man assured him. “It is merely the most efficient path. For now, however, you have more power than I in the realm of moving about the Earth, because you _are_ the Earth. Take us to our brothers, and we can finish our assigned task, and complete the will of our predecessor.”

Grunting unhappily, Makoto’s father shook his head. “Not until Makoto and Tomoko are put somewhere where they’ll be safe,” he growled.

* * *

#### [Strength]

* * *

He wasn’t at her side when she awoke. She knew it should have upset her, but at the same time, it didn’t. She knew there was a bond between them, forged by the warmth that survived through twenty years and more of lying frozen…

She shivered at that. So easy, now, to control the Heart of Ice. But the cost…

Her own curse was the merest price to pay, and one she could not complain about truly. His curse was old, but in the end, without that curse, she wouldn’t be alive. Again, it was a small price to pay, she thought.

Rising from the bed that she had rested in throughout the night, though her lover was gone at the moment… She smiled, relishing the sensation. Even the feel of the muscles in her face moving. So strange, such a strange power that had brought her back from death and restored her flesh. Shaking her head, she gingerly paced across the floor, the thick carpet unable to completely protect her from the cold of the stone beneath.

A note in a hand that was far to concise to be Ranma’s informed her of the location of a bath for the guests of the Musk, and a thick robe was hanging from a hook on the back of the door. Taking the robe in hand, she idly wondered to herself, “Where is Ranma?”

* * *

#### [Mirror, Mirror]

* * *

After a quick scrub, she let herself slip into the warmth of the vast, segregated bath. No mere bamboo divider, instead high stone piled up to separate the two halves. And the water was, thanks entirely to the Phoenix people, very hot.

She hissed slightly, lowering herself into it, as a cold wind breezed through, swirling the steam upwards and allowing her a clear view. Except for one other, climbing into the opposite end of the vast bath, it was deserted.

Lips quirking upward in a smile, she realized who the other woman would be. She slipped into the water, slowly working her way across the bath and enjoying the warmth.

It took her only a second to utilize her power and draw on the threads of magic that suffused the area. Her great-grandmother had hated when she used her power… “Hello!” she announced cheerfully, jumping through a passing veil of cloud.

The girl who she had surprised was not the girl she had thought, and she spent a moment staring, absorbing the red hair and strong features, before she remembered.

“Kiima?” Akane asked warily, eyes wide.

“No…” the woman said, shaking her head, and shifting again to emulate the form before her. “I suppose… ‘Shan-Pu is copy-cat’,” she offered, smirking.

Akane stared at her, now that the woman was a mirror for herself, then burst out laughing, while Shan-Pu let her own form become dominant once more. “How are you, Akane?” she asked, watching the girl… No… Woman. She was a girl in body only.

Akane recovered herself, brushing her red bangs out of her eyes, and allowed, “I’ve been much worse. How have you been, Shan-Pu?”

“Ah?” she asked. “I have been worse. I was only frozen for hours…” She shivered, shaking her head. “It wasn’t fun. What about you?”

“I don’t know,” Akane admitted after a moment, eyes distant. “But I think that as long as Ranma is with me… I’ll always be okay.”

“Good catch,” Shan-Pu advised. “You could have done far worse. I’m just glad that we got you out of there. Koara found out some fairly frightening things while he was investigating.”

“Oh?” Akane asked, narrowing her eyes worriedly.

“Mmm. Ranko gave them much in trade for the right to free you… I’ll not lie to you, Akane. We took a very substantial risk in allowing what we did. As it stands, Xinjiang may have enough power to destroy us.”

“Xinjiang?”

“Where you were,” she clarified. “With Ranma… perhaps with Ranma, if he agrees to stand with us, that risk will be lessened. But… I don’t know.”

Akane’s brows furrowed, and she stared fixedly into the water. “I… I think Ranma will help. I don’t know why he wouldn’t… He… We both owe you a lot, I think.” Smiling slightly, she added, “And don’t count me out, either!”

The younger woman raised her hand to strike the surface of the bath to emphasize her point, a faint nimbus of blue energy expanding from her fist to flash brightly, rendering the entire bath nothing but ice. Shan-Pu shook her head, warned by an unnamable reflex, and had seized the other woman, hauling her out before she struck. “Maybe,” she allowed, shivering at the cold air, and frowning at the frozen bath not three steps away. “And maybe Ranma will want to teach you a little more first.”

Akane had the decency to blush, while Shan-Pu dropped the other woman’s hand and raised a single finger in demonstration. “Control is important. The Heart of Ice… You should be more careful, I think,” she warned. “I’ll find someone to melt the bath. For now, I think we should eat. When was your last meal?”

* * *

#### [Water]

* * *

He flowed through the forms with a strangely surreal ease. He had known he was good, but then, he also used to know what he was doing wrong. That sensation was lost now, merely the smooth, flawless artistry of motion left to replace the strain and effort.

How much had being without a body for so long taken from him? So much of his martial arts… but then, he had more than martial arts, should he need it, though he didn’t understand it all yet.

Sighing pensively, he threw himself into a more complex kata, straining to remember the details and nuances, and to try and get it right. His ruminations were interrupted as a presence intruded on his senses, and he broke from the kata, tossing his head to one side, as a fist passed through that same space only a hairsbreadth later.

Not bothering to speak, he offered the other man a smile, and continued with the kata, a simple strike throwing the overextended arm away, and opening Herb’s guard. Herb grinned back, launching a kick in before he could take advantage enough to strike, and then the two lost themselves to a level of combat that brooked no thought, merely action.

So caught up were they in the melee, they did not notice until a pair of fierce calls distracted them and they both paused, turning to look to the courtyard, some meters below them. Akane and Shan-Pu both stood, dressed in similar clothing, both with hands on hips, and both looking upward with looks of faint amusement and simultaneous worry.

He blinked at that, while Herb drew away a short distance, scratching the back of his head. Then something penetrated, and he looked down to his lover, at Shan-Pu’s side.

“Hey, I can’t fly…” And with that realization, he plummeted, hurtling headlong towards the cobbled stones below. Akane’s eyes widened with realization, and the absurdity of the situation sent him into a fit of laughter, as his servant — the other part of _himself_ , in all truth — emerged from seemingly nowhere. He caught himself on the Dragon’s neck, swinging around and landing easily atop the creature’s head, barely able to maintain his laughter at the whole affair.

“Hey, Herb?” he asked, chuckling and looking upward, where the man floated idly, watching him curiously.

“Yes, Ranma?”

“How did you let me float like you did?”

Herb blinked, frowning. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I think it was because we were sparring.”

“Figure it out,” Shan-Pu grumped. “Then come back. We want to eat, and there’s much to discuss.”

Herb sank to the ground, Ranma leaping to Akane’s side and dismissing his servant. “Very well,” Herb grumped.

“And thaw out the bath first,” Shan-Pu advised. “It’s a bit frozen.”

* * *

#### [Folly of Dreaming]

* * *

“Who are you?” Shia Hai asked bitterly, not rising from her chair.

Across the room, peering at the young woman intently, the young man smiled — smiled so deeply his eyes narrowed to the point of nearly being closed. “You can call me Keitaro,” he said. After a pause, he added, “Right now you should probably call me Konno, though. I have a lot of half-brothers.”

“Fey,” the woman spat. “Why are you holding me here?”

“Do you even know who you are?”

“Of course I do! I’m Shia Hai, servant of the People.”

The man smirked, shaking his head, and sinking to sit at the floor across the small stone room. “You know that, but you don’t really understand. Would you like me to tell you a story?”

“No!”

“Too bad.”

* * *

#### [Song of the Void]

* * *

“Um… Ucchan,” he began haltingly, smiling at his daughters as they stared at him in awe. “I’m afraid that I need to go… go to China.”

“Then you’re taking me with you,” she insisted, glaring at the man who called himself Ryu’s brother angrily. “I don’t trust him anyway. Why should you trust him?”

Judging that it was safe, Nabiki approached from where she had watched the entire display, and added, “If this is about Ranko and… and Ranma and Akane… then I want to go, too.”

He frowned and shook his head unhappily. “Where would I leave the children?” he asked warily.

“Damnable relations,” his brother grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Have you no one who can watch over them?”

“Konatsu?” Ryu asked, struggling.

“If you can find him,” Ukyou grumbled. “He doesn’t like to come out into the light much anymore…”

“A being of shadow and fleeting thought,” Ryu’s brother noted. “Inadequate.”

“Uh,” Ryu grunted. “Nabiki? What about your family?”

“What?” she asked, taken aback. “Oh, well… You could ask Kasumi, I suppose.”

“Okay,” Ryu mumbled, smiling at his children. They blinked, and he used his newfound power to shift them about — and they were gone.

Ukyou squawked indignantly, “Ryu! Where are they?”

“With Kasumi,” he answered slowly, feeling his children’s feet pattering about the backyard of the old Tendo home, delighted at the new trick. Kasumi’s light step was not far away, hesitant and confused, but slowly gathering confidence as she led the children into the house, and then, onto a surface he couldn’t sense as well. “They’re fine,” he added. “Let’s go.”

And with that, they vanished from the street.

* * *

#### [Scent of Spring]

* * *

When my father was a young man, his life — and indeed, reality — began to reshape themselves. As you know, Winter is the bane of the fey. But around one woman, as incidental as she was, hints of Spring lurked, allowing some who would not otherwise have been anything other than… mundane… to be more. To be fey.

There was a man who loved this woman, this key. And this man, after the fall, when hints of fey became true fey, became a symbol of fey. He was the Magician. Some say that the first is not the Magician, but instead the Fool. Some insist that it is the other way about.

However, the Fool is my father, and my father loved the Magician like his _own_ father. Someday, the Fool will outgrow his own foolishness, and then he’ll be the Magician.

But, of course, Spring came, after the Fall. And with the Fall, there was no longer a need for a key, a hint of the Spring to come, and room was needed to be made for the next key, the doorway to Summer. And with the loss of the key, then too was lost the Magician, for his life was… But that’s not important at the moment.

I will tell you this much of the woman though, Shia Hai. Her name meant Scent of Spring. Haruka.

* * *

#### [Center of the Spiral]

* * *

Ukyou staggered, unsettled by the sensation of being one place, then suddenly shifting to another. She stared at the flagstones of the courtyard around her in confusion, noting Nabiki’s equal disorientation.

Ryu stared about, bearing not trace of uneasiness at the process, then to Ryu’s self-proclaimed brother, who rose to float off the stones and drifted about, smiling faintly. “This will suffice,” he remarked critically, studying the layout of the court, and the fountain in the center. A pair of young men and a young woman — Ranko — sat on the fountain, staring at the newcomers’ arrival with some interest.

“Ranko!” Nabiki exclaimed, rushing towards her daughter. “You’re okay! You’re okay! Why didn’t you call us?”

“Ack!” the woman sputtered, shoving one of the men away from her and embracing her mother awkwardly. “Mom! I wanted to call, but I couldn’t; they said that the communication lines were being watched by Xinjiang….”

Nabiki shook her head, drawing away from her daughter, and offering a relieved smile. “You’re okay?” she asked.

Ranko nodded, looking distinctly nervous. “Just peachy, Mom.” Glancing towards Ryu, as the young man she had pushed climbed to his feet, she called out, “Hey, Uncle Ryu, Auntie Ukyou! How did you get here?”

Ukyou stared at Ryu for a moment, then turned back to Ranko, admitting, “I’m not sure. I think Ryu learned how to teleport people.”

Ranko’s eyes widened. “Really?” she asked, surprised. “How neat!”

“He’s always known how to do that,” Ryu’s self-proclaimed bother noted dryly. “It’s simply that today he’s learned to stop fleeing his own shadow.”

The other young man at Ranko’s side, the one dressed in the immaculate dress of a swordsman, drew his sword, eyeing the levitating man suspiciously. “What manner of man are you?” he asked carefully. “I sense something about you that puzzles me.”

“I was once called Shinnosuke,” he addressed the swordsman. “You serve my brother, the King of Swords, not I. I am the King of Staves.”

“I serve no such man,” the swordsman countered, not sheathing his blade.

“You will,” Shinnosuke informed him casually. “Earth, we must summon our brothers, and find the key. We have much work to be done.”

“Uh…. Can’t you at least pretend to act like a normal human?” Ryu complained, as the swordsman unhappily sheathed his blade.

Shinnosuke looked genuinely confounded. “Why would I care to do such a thing?” he asked.

Ryu hung his head, sighing. “Okay,” he said a moment later. “Who’s the key?”

* * *

#### [Dreaming of Folly]

* * *

Blinking away her confusion, Shia Hai asked, “What does that have to do with me?”

Konno shrugged, drawing a package of cigarettes from his pocket. “My brothers serve, or will serve, the progeny of Shen-Lung. I myself, will serve the one who brings Spring to the world.”

Shia Hai reluctantly took a cigarette from the package, hands close together, afraid of touching Konno unnecessarily. “There’s no lighter,” she complained.

Nonchalantly, the man drew a coin from his pocket, flipped it with his thumb, and when it landed in his hand, it burst into a tiny ball of flame. Grinning, the man presented Shia Hai with the handful of fire. She drew away fearfully, whimpering.

Laughing, Konno asked, “Are you afraid of fire?”

“No!” Shia Hai snapped. “Just magic!”

“The magic will not harm you,” Konno assured her, holding the small ball of fire out to her. “You can take it.”

“But… but it’s not even real!”

“Neither am I, and yet you address me as if I were real. And you can change that, as well….”

Shia Hai tentatively, slowly reached out and gathered a small finger full of the flame. “It’s warm,” she said, confused, too stunned to remember to use it to light her cigarette.

Konno smirked, asking, “Do you understand, then? Are you willing to bring Summer to us?”

“Absolutely not!” she said, dropping the fire, to have it wink out on the floor with a metallic clinking noise, as it became a coin once more. “It would not serve the People at all.”

“You serve the People, Shia Hai? The fey are people, too. Are you going to chose to serve only some people, when the whole world deserves to be able to make the choice for themselves?”

She shook her head, uncertain. She had known the moment she had entered the lands of the fey, they had begun altering the way that she thought, who she was. But…

But what if that was someone who she’d always been?

Alone, trapped with one of the fey, and being told that she was their messiah — it was too much, and the woman spat out her cigarette, burying her face in her hands. “I can’t! I’m not like you! I’m not fey!”

“But you can be,” Konno countered. “And if you are, then you are free. Freer than you ever thought possible.”

* * *

#### [Reunion]

* * *

“Ucchan?” he asked, surprised. At the nickname, his lover drew him close to her, pouting, even as the man at Ukyou’s side put an arm around her protectively. “Hey!” he exclaimed, turning to Akane. “Look, Ucchan came to visit us!”

Ukyou giggled, shaking her head. “Ranma,” she said quietly. “This is such a strange day… you’re alive!” She sniffled, wiping a tear from her eyes and unmindful of the others in the room. “I’m sorry, Ranma,” she said quietly, bowing her head. “I… I didn’t wait for you. I… Ranma, this is my husband, Ryu.”

“Long time since I’ve seen you,” Ranma allowed, bowing politely to Ryu. “You been doing okay?” Glancing at Ukyou, he smirked, dismissing her hurt casually as he added, “You been taking real good care of my friend, there?”

Ryu blinked, obviously taken aback, then relaxed, and said, “I’ve been worse, I suppose… Ranma. I only got lost for a while. You… how have you been?”

“Mighty cold,” he chuckled, grinning. “I… Why are you here, anyway? And Shinnosuke?”

“You know that guy?” Ukyou and Ryu asked together, surprised.

Shinnosuke snorted derisively, shaking his head. “That I would be more elevated would be assumed, but must my brethren all be so base?” he grumbled.

“What?” Ranma, Herb, and Ryu asked in tandem.

“Nothing,” Shinnosuke sighed. “Merely that we’re wasting time. We are here, and thus, we should set about the task left us by our predecessor.”

“Who?” Herb asked, frowning. “I’ve divined long ago that there were four of us, and that we each embodied some trait, but I could never discern what bestowed that trait… nor did I know of you two.”

“Hmm,” Shinnosuke mused. In an authoritative voice, he began, “Legend speaks to us of Shen-Lung, the great dragon that supports the palace of the gods in the heavens….”

* * *

#### [Choice]

* * *

“I can choose to do nothing and let you all die, can’t I?” Shia Hai accused. “I can just turn my back on you and let you perish.”

“You could,” Konno allowed. “But even if we never thrived, we cannot all perish in Spring. Only in Winter. And then, we would return anyway. Eventually, your life will end, and then another key will be reborn. Chronos is on our side. The only thing you can do is delay what will happen.”

“You’re bluffing,” she countered.

“Why would I bluff? I am your servant.”

“If you’re my servant, then light a cigarette for me,” she insisted, watching him carefully.

He shrugged, stooping to gather the pack where she had dropped it, his head easily within kicking range should she try and lash out at him. Of course… Was he trusting her, or merely foolish? Rising, he touched the tip of a cigarette with his finger, and it glowed faintly, already alight. “Here,” he said, offering it to her.

She accepted it, relaxing as she inhaled the thick smoke. “What if I tell you to get me out of here, to return me to Xinjiang?”

“Then I tell you how to leave,” he answered, shrugging. “I’m not dumb enough to go there myself. You shouldn’t be, either. Koara, he’s a damn big fool; he’ll do it. Did already, I guess.”

“Why do I trust you?” she mumbled. “Are you working your magic on me?”

“Only the family charm,” he offered, grinning. “Dad got it worst, though.”

“I… What will I get if I do this thing? If I bring Summer? What if I hunt down the key to Winter after that, to finish you off?”

“You’d be skipping Fall,” he noted. “And the key to Winter would still be you. Just reborn, like.”

She sighed, hanging her head as a vague memory of a house she had never lived in swam through her head, followed by the memories of a man… a man she had known…. “You’re messing with my head!” she accused, glaring at Konno.

The man sighed, saying, “No, but this much magic is awakening your true nature. The four pillars are pretty close by, and they’ll keep generating more magic as long as they’re together.”

“So there’s going to be more magic even if I don’t help you?” she asked, wincing.

“Well… yeah, I guess so.”

* * *

#### [Compass Points]

* * *

“Okay,” Ranma said, shrugging. “Let’s do this thing. Any words of wisdom, Shinnosuke? You seem to know what’s going on.”

The man nodded, gesturing to the courtyard. “Take the places you know in your hearts that you’re needed to go,” he advised.

With that, he drifted through the air on an errant breeze, standing at the northernmost edge of the courtyard. Ryu shrugged, shifting and not moving — simply _being_ at the south edge. Ranma folded his arms, as Herb strode purposefully to the western edge, each of them standing at the outermost ring of the circular courtyard.

All four stepped forward, stopping midway to the center, unsure of how to proceed, excepting Shinnosuke. He merely smiled, summoning his servant to him, the Dragon looming ominously overhead, and swiftly joined by a trio of others.

Shinnosuke’s Air; glowing a smoky blue, which seeped into the courtyard beneath him. Herb’s Fire; malevolently red. Ryu’s Earth; wisps of dark power rising slowly about it. Ranma’s Water; cerulean and placid.

The courtyard beneath them suffused a solid white, when Herb intoned, “I am the King of Swords, and I am Shen-Lung’s left hand.” As he spoke, the air about him suffused red, charged with a power and energy far greater than himself. “Keeper of the west gate.”

“I am the King of Coins,” Ryu said next, from the south. “I am the feet of Shen-Lung.” Dark, earthly strains of magic rose further about him, streaking upward in a column. The red about Herb rose in challenge, as Ryu finished, “Keeper of the south gate.”

“I am the King of Cups,” Ranma returned easily. “I am Shen-Lung’s right hand.” At his words, the cerulean blue streamers rose, pushing the magic higher, nearly threatening the clouds themselves. “Keeper of the east gate.”

“I am the King of Staves,” the final man concluded. “I am the wisdom of Shen-Lung.” A final column, this one of bluish-green energy, sprang into being, twining around the others, and swirling them all into a tower of purest white. “Keeper of the north gate.”

Someone else spoke, hesitantly, from the edge of the circle of magic. Where, was not possible to say, for she was no closer to the east or west, than north or south, yet she was only at the edge of the circle. Her voice, wavering and unsure, said, “And I am the key… The key to Summer.”

And with those words, Summer began.

* * *

#### [Lazy Days of Summer]

* * *

Koara lounged lazily on the hillside, pleasantly green and lush. The springs were below, beyond the library. He could see a few people scurrying about excitedly in the courtyard below — likely looking for his brother’s master.

“So,” he drawled, shooting a glance at Ranko, who sprawled only a short distance away, then beyond, to where Aoyama sat. “Got what you were expecting?”

Aoyama snorted, shaking his head. “I could do worse,” he allowed. “Herb is a fair enough man to serve.”

“Eh. You realize that the King of Staves and the King of Coins gotta deal with Maehara and Otohime, right?”

“I don’t know that the King of Staves would care much for a servant. He seems more content to flit about and call things ‘remarkable’.”

“Yeah. True. I wonder why, though.”

“I think I know,” Ranko offered, staring up at a passing cloud.

Both of the men looked at her askance.

Sighing, she explained, “Ryu feels the Earth, and he was wounded when the Fall happened, because the radiation was hurting him. What happened to the air around the world when that all happened? I think that Shinnosuke lost it because of the pain… and what was left of Shen-Lung took over for him.”

“Could be,” Koara allowed. “Could be.”

“Anyway,” Ranko said, shaking her head and turning her attention to Koara. “Sorry about… um… that whole pushing thing.”

“What, not like you’re the firs’ girl ta shove me an’ try an’ hide me from ‘er mom,” he snickered.

Aoyama snorted, shaking his head. “Yes she was,” he remarked drolly.

Ranko giggled quietly, then asked, “Koara? What… what happens next?”

“Well,” he said at length, turning to look her in the eye. “I guess that’s all up to you, ain’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure it's exactly what I was going after, but this is the closest I could really come…
> 
> Anyway. This is based off of Nanashi's 'Fey', which is based off the earlier chapters of 'Compass Points', which is based off of Nanashi's 'Soul of Ice' (Deus ex Machina), which is based off of Matt's 'Soul of Ice', which is based off of Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma ½. And something in there is based off of something that's based off of 'I am Become…'. No, that's not a joke.


End file.
